Written by Hannah Clarke – Assistant Curator (Collections Access), University of Aberdeen.
In May this year, I was given the slightly terrifying task of overseeing the removal and transportation of Aberdeen University’s much-loved Japanese Spider Crab (Macrocheira kaempferi) specimen. The crab, who is usually proudly displayed in the foyer of the University’s Zoology Building, had been requested for loan by Aberdeen Art Gallery & Museums, for their exciting new exhibition ‘Monsters of the Deep.’
The crab had previously been removed during renovation work in 2019, without hiccup, so recalling how ‘straightforward’ this had been last time, I was confident that we could get the crab removed, cleaned, packed, and ready for transport in just under three days.
Written by Anastasia van Gaver (Conservator) & Bethany Palumbo (Head of Conservation) Natural History Museum Denmark).
Workshop participants and Julian Carter
As conservators, it’s essential we keep up to date with developments in the techniques used in specimen treatments. With hundreds of fluid-preserved specimens to make and conserve for the new exhibitions at the Natural History Museum of Denmark, we sought the best in the field to give us a refresher course. Esteemed expert Julian Carter arrived fresh off the plane from Cardiff and over 3 days we explored different techniques for preserving and mounting specimens and well as discussing the unique challenges we face when conserving these invaluable scientific resources.
Example of three fluid specimens prepared by the conservation team for the new Natural History Museum of Denmark
Montrose Museum in Angus, northeast Scotland, houses an impressive natural history collection. Everything from taxidermy to fossils to rare minerals are housed in a modest, Greek-revival style museum off the high street. Built in 1842, it is one of the first purpose-built museums in Scotland.
Sadly, due to changing public interest (and the challenging funding situation facing many local authority museums) the collection has been somewhat forgotten since it was catalogued onto neat pink index cards in the late 1970s.
Montrose Museum’s 1970s card catalogue (author’s own photo)
Written by Julian Carter, Principal Conservator Natural Sciences, Amgueddfa Cymru – Museum Wales, Cardiff
During the late 19th century, Leopold Blaschka (1822-1895) and his son Rudolf (1857-1929) produced thousands of beautifully detailed glass models of a wide range of sea creatures, and other animals, for natural history museums and aquaria all over the world. The work has since been hailed as “an artistic marvel in the field of science and a scientific marvel in the field of art”. The work of the Blaschka’s remains remarkably contemporary today, working as they did on the cusp of design, craft, and industry. Crossing the boundaries of science and art, the surviving models today have a value that makes them irreplaceable.
The idea for making lifelike renditions of sea creatures out of glass arose from the difficulty of preserving and displaying soft-bodied animals such as jellyfish, marine worms, and sea anemones. Preserving such animals in a lifelike way is difficult as techniques such as fluid preservation cause colours to quickly fade and shapes to become distorted. Leopold Blaschka devised a solution to this problem by using his glass working skills to accurately model these animals out of glass and other materials available to him and went on to establish a successful business supplying glass models to museums worldwide during the latter half of the 19th century.
The model of the sea anemone Actinia mesembryanthum (right) based on a plate (left) from Phillip Henry Gosse’s Actinologia britannica. A history of the British sea-anemones and corals which Leopold Blaschka used for the early sea anemone models that he built.
Written by Dr Amy Geraghty, Assistant Keeper/Curator of aquatic zoology collections with responsibility for fluid collection management.
The National Museum of Ireland (NMI) Natural History Division (NHD) holds about 2 million specimens in its collection. The collection is ordinarily split between three locations: the museum and two off-site storage buildings. However, at the time of writing, nearly all specimens are in one of the two storage buildings. The museum galleries are being emptied to facilitate investigative works on and the refurbishment of building itself.
One of the National Museum of Ireland’s two storage buildings in 2006. It is an old British army barracks that now stores the fluid collection, some of the dry zoology, mineralogical and paleontological collections. (Image courtesy of Nigel Monaghan)
One of the storage buildings is a mid-nineteenth century British army barracks that came to NMI in the mid-1990s and now stores NHD collections. Retrofitting the building for collection storage has involved the installation of plasterboard ceilings, internal doors, and security and fire alarm systems. Toilets, telephones, a tearoom, shelving, and internet facilities were later installed in the 2000s.
NatSCA 