A RARE ELEPHANT BIRD (AEPYORNIS MAXIMUS) BONE, PRE 17TH CENTURY

20cm long

Please note this lot is subject to VAT on the hammer price at 20%.

Elephant birds were enormous flightless birds that once lived on the island of Madagascar. They became extinct, perhaps around 1000–1200 AD, probably as a result of human activity.

Provenance: Errol Fuller, previously J.C. Stevens Auctions Rooms, which closed in the 1940's. Then Viktor Wynd's Museum, London.

J. C. Stevens Auction Rooms specialised in the sale of natural history specimens, and also sold 'curiosities' and antiquities. The company was founded in circa 1759 by the bookseller Samuel Patterson, and was taken over by Thomas of Foster Lane in 1824. The firm continued after Henry's death, but closed in the 1940s as the popularity of natural history sales waned.

The Viktor Wynd Museum of Curiosities, Fine Art & UnNatural History is a contemporary reinterpretation of a Pre-Enlightenment Wunderkabinett or Cabinet of Curiosities. It is the creation of artist and writer Viktor Wynd, who has just opened a Falmouth branch of his museum inside the National Maritime Museum. His most recent book 'The UnNatural History Museum' was published by Prestel in 2020.