A unicorn is sold. It’s probably not the last
236 by 151 centimeters tall, estimated at 6000 euros
Quelle: Curated Auctions London
You can buy (almost) anything used. For example bizarre dermoplastic preparations. Sometimes there are even unicorns among the stuffed mythical animals. But they are too expensive for children’s rooms.
Vom stuffing you shouldn’t really talk. Because taxidermists see themselves as sculptors who create dermoplastic preparations instead of just pulling the fur over the ears of animal carcasses. Sometimes they result in veritable Wunderkammer objects.
These can be authentic wild animal figures of historical value or more or less imaginative wolpertingers, i.e. hybrid creatures. And if you look at the auction houses, even the extremely rare unicorns are caught and, well, stuffed from time to time.
At Christie’s, for example, a somewhat battered-looking specimen went under the hammer in 2012, on which either the ravages of time gnawed or the craftsman hadn’t done his best. But because unicorns aren’t just popular with five-year-old girls, it was auctioned off for the princely sum of £12,000. Two years later, a handsome pair of white unicorn heads for wall mounting even went as high as £35,000.
“Unicorn Heads” on sale at Christie’s 2014
Quelle: Getty Images/Dan Kitwood
Unfortunately nobody knows whether they were hung up in a child’s room or in a library. In the Gentleman’s Library Sale at Bonhams in 2019, a single unicorn head didn’t top £3,500. Perhaps it was because the taxidermist accidentally used a goatskin rather than a horse’s head and neck, as is usual. But – some younger readers have to be strong now! – There are no unicorns.
Back to the realm of mythical creatures. We learned from Harry Potter that if you kill a unicorn and drink from its silver blood, you will live an immortal but cursed life. What will happen to someone who puts a life-size, cream-colored horse with a replica narwhal tooth (in real life also a delicate collector’s item) in their apartment?
Dermoplastic preparation of a horse with mounted horn
Quelle: Curated Auctions London
The auctioneer Curated Auctions in London is now offering “a taxidermy full mount ‘unicorn’ (equus caballus)” for a starting bid of 5000 pounds (equivalent to 5800 euros). The hammer will fall on July 13, 2022.