Mammals

You say you went on holiday to Italy and spent all your time in the natural history museum drawing stuffed animals? There's something wrong with this picture. But I'm lost every time I enter La Specola, remembering late nights waiting for my dad to finish up in the lab, pulling out the hundreds of mothball scented specimen drawers to reveal birdskins, bones.

This museum too is part of the department of biology, low rooms filled with stolid wood and glass cases that enclose a provocative collection of mounted species. I remember immediately a pack of cards featuring 180 mammals, which my brothers and I incessantly flashed in each other's faces. Most of our old friends are seen here, dik-dik to jereboa, mole to platypus.

Here are a few of the sketches I did, some in the museum, some later from forbidden photos. It's a style I also learned from my dad, who showed me how to draw animals like this when I was only 4 or 5. Certain meditations on the taxidermist/artist's need to suggest life in its absolute absence echo through this museum, also in the famous wax anatomical figures in the adjoining room.

Little cat, little dog

Hyena


Monkey


A hedgehog and a tasmanian devil


Grebe


Gazelle


Desert dog


Civet


Rat


Mouse