AN EARLY 20TH CENTURY BAMILEKE TRIBE ANCESTOR SKULL WITH BEADED DECORATION

glass beads on cloth and human skull,

22cm high

Provenance:

Collected originally in 1932 , Cameroon. West Africa. ( Dr. F. Kirby Gloucester).

Acquired in 1967 for the Palmer-Hudson Collection by Dr Palmer Ph.D. of Gloucester from a German doctors estate in 1967.

The skull remained in that collection until now.

The Palmer-Hudson Collection:

The Museum of Curios collection started in the 1930’s by Dr Palmer Ph.D. of Gloucester.

Phillip Henry Douglas Palmer collected bizarre and wonderful artefacts all his life. He worked as an administrator for the National Health Service where he came into contact with many retired doctors and physicians. These encounters led him to amass a huge collection of eighteenth and nineteenth century anatomical models and curios from all over the world.
Over the years he sold, swapped and dealt to collectors all over Europe increasing an already huge private collection of 2047 artefacts, which was housed in his small office at home in Downderry, Cornwall. Dr Palmer Pd.D. met Mr Robert Hudson in the early 1990's through his daughter Alison, and together they combined their collections and set up the Bizarre and Weird Museum in Newquay, Cornwall, which was to eventually hold some 4000 rare and unusual artefacts which were rotated for display. In 2006 the museum building was sold but a small number of artefacts remained in the collection, including this fascinating ancestor skull.