THE BIRDS AT SOUTH KENSINGTON.
South Kensington has of late years been so inseparably identified with Art, that it will seem natural to the readers of this article for Art to form its subject; but it will probably surprise the frequenters of these buildings to be asked to bend their steps towards the Natural History Department—which one naturally supposes devoted to scientific objects—to examine works of art quite equal in their way to any to be found in the building devoted ostensibly to that purpose.
Many must have been struck by the artistic and natural grouping of the birds, with their nests and young, in imitation of the surroundings they frequent while living. How much more one is impressed with the beauty of the creatures, when one sees them arranged in the positions they assume in a state of nature, than when placed in the old-fashioned style, mounted on boards or badly imitated stumps of trees! Justly, this admirable grouping calls forth exclamations of delight from the beholder; yet there is a fact connected with this artistic grouping that is as well worthy of the admiration of the visitor as the scientific facts here intended to be represented.
The surrounding of each of these nests is a work of art in itself, constructed, with the most painstaking regard to accuracy of detail, by a lady, whose name, though not appearing in this connection, is not unknown to fame. The sods—if the bird be a ground-builder—are dug up with the nest and surroundings as they are found, and are submitted at once for the modeller to copy the various weeds and flowers exactly as they grow. The sods are then dried and cleaned, and the modeller fixes into them the flowers and weeds she has constructed, and paints up the grass, to restore it to its original colour. They are then deposited in the places they are destined to occupy in the Museum.
The material employed for making these artificial flowers and weeds has been called by the inventor, who is also the modeller, the ‘New Kensington Art Material.’ Boughs of trees, the minutest flowers and weeds, even the hair-like filaments that many flower-stems possess as a protection against the ravages of insects, are copied with such scrupulous accuracy as to defy detection by ordinary means; and the union between the real wood and its artificial representation is concealed with the same regard to reality. The secret of the manufacture of the material is strictly preserved.
At the International Exhibition of 1851, Mrs Mogridge—then Miss Mintorn—in conjunction with others of her family, took the first prize for models of wax-flowers; notably a model of ‘Victoria Regia’ lilies, taken from the first to bloom in England, by permission of Her Grace the Duchess of Northumberland. Of late years, Mrs Mogridge has used the new Art Material in place of wax, on account of its superior strength, and indestructibility, it being unaffected by heat, the great enemy to all work in wax. Moreover, it admits of more perfect colouring; no shade being unattainable in this composition, and permitting of the most brilliant effects of pigmentation.
It is adaptable to all artistic decorations on account of its greater strength; and flowers made in it can be mixed with living foliage so as to be a perfect deception, when the real flowers are unattainable. It may be interesting to notice that naturalists will find a ready means of enhancing the value of their collections, not only of birds, as before noticed, but of insects. Lord Walsingham, we are told, has a large collection of butterflies and moths which are mounted in this way, surrounded by the smallest weeds and plants on which they feed.
Botanical specimens for all purposes, particularly in schools, &c., where botany is taught, may be made of this material with advantage, as the natural specimens are so easily destroyed with handling. Its value for designs for china-painting, where the choice flowers, such as orchids, &c., cannot be procured in their natural state, will be easily appreciated; and models made of it are, in fact, already used by the artists at the Royal Porcelain Works at Worcester for this purpose, as all the detail is faithfully carried out, from the flower of the common nettle to the large oak-bough.