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Art that's stuffed & mounted
Gouri Satya, Jul 18 2017, 2:10 IST


Colonial India witnessed large-scale shikars — big game hunting — in states that had lush forests and a large number of wild animals. Pleasure hunting was a must in the itinerary of visiting viceroys, governors, princes and kings. They shot the magnificent animals and preserved them as trophies of their valour.

Mysore was one such place that was popular for hunting activities. Whenever British administrators or rulers from other states visited Mysore, a special khedda was made in the forests of Heggadadevanakote to capture wild elephants. Besides witnessing the khedda operation, the guests would enter deep into the forest for hunting. Big games like tigers, leopards, bisons and elephants used to be the main targets.

It was a common practice to get these dead animals stuffed and mounted — through a process called taxidermy — for display in their palaces or bungalows. Many times, the rulers would get the animals mounted and gifted them to the visitors, mainly British officials. Taxidermy is the art of preserving an animal’s body by stuffing it with substances to make it look lifelike. Taxi means arrangement and dermi means skin and thus, the arrangement of the skin is called taxidermy.

Taxidermy is a multidisciplinary art that requires the knowledge of anatomy, sculpting, carpentry, painting and tanning of animals. The process can stretch from a week to over a month to finish, depending on the animal and its size. Accordingly, it is a tedious process involving various stages. It can be performed on all the species of animals.

The pioneers

Van Ingens were the first to establish this business on a large scale in Mysore. Originally Dutch traders, Van Ingens migrated to Mysore in the 1600s and made it their home. They saw that Mysore had a good potential in taxidermy with its dense forests and rich wildlife. Some members of the family were accomplished in this art as well. Though they migrated in the 1600s, they established their taxidermy firm only in the 20th century.

The Van Ingen family conducted what “must rank as one of the world’s most significant taxidermy firms” for nearly a century. They created a prodigious number of moulds from which mounts were cast, a process unique to them.

Van Ingens were also among the first to develop a method that cut costs, and made the finished mounts cheaper. They developed moulds and papier mache manikins of different sizes before many others could do. With these, they could produce mounts of consistent quality for a variety of poses from head mounts to full mount life-size pieces. This technique helped them make anatomical variations and create different expressions. The head mounts were extremely lightweight, making the shikar trophies processed by them cheaper.

They maintained consistent standard of workmanship and earned international reputation for their work. They were taxidermists to several royal families across the world.

Their prestigious factory was located in the Nazarbad area of Mysore. It started functioning in 1912 and it was probably the only mass production factory ever set up for the purpose of taxidermy in the world.

At one point in time, the Van Ingen and Van Ingen firm employed as many as 150 people to mount a relentless flow of specimens. According to records, from 1931 to 1939, a total of 3,634 specimens were mounted, which accounted for nearly 10 a week. For a single mount, they would require at least eight workers.

Mounting tigers and leopards was the firm’s speciality and they got orders from all over the world. They also processed other animals like lions, elephants, bears and ungulates. They produced taxidermy in the form of full mounts (full body), heads on shields, flat rugs and rugs mounted with heads. As per records, the Dutch taxidermists processed over 20,000 tigers and 24,000 leopards in their century-long work. Their quality and realism was unmatched and the standard of craftsmanship they had achieved brought them world reputation. They also published authoritative books on the art of taxidermy.

As founders, Eugene Melville Van Ingen, and his wife, Patti, were the earliest to be associated with the firm. It was largely patronised by the Maharaja of Mysore. Eugene died in 1928 and the business was managed by Patti and her three sons, John de Wet (1902-1993), Henry Botha (1904-1996) and Edwin Joubert (1912-2013), who had received training from their father. Patti died in 1964. Ably assisted by his two brothers, John de Wet successfully managed the firm for decades. The three brothers together produced some of the finest tiger trophies.

Post World War II, situations began to change. There was a greater awareness about the conservation of wildlife. After Independence, laws and regulations began to restrict big game hunting. Later, the landmark Wildlife Conservation Act in 1972 banned hunting. From 1962 onwards, Van Ingens’ business began to steadily decline, bringing it to a halt in the late 1980s. The shutters of the factory were finally rolled down in 1995.

Other interests

The family members were also eminent anglers who established many records. When the Prince of Wales, later King Edward VIII, went on a fishing adventure to catch the famous mahseer in the waters of River Kabini in January 1922 during his three-day visit to Mysore, Van Ingens led the advance party. Nearly a quarter century later, John de Wet Van Ingen caught a record 120lb mahseer, the largest mahseer ever caught on rod.

Barbara Van Ingen was the eldest daughter of Robert Joseph Flaherty, one of the pioneer filmmakers, who produced The Elephant Boy in the forests of Mysore. When Barbara came to Mysore in 1934 for her father’s film, she met Botha Van Ingen and they got married in 1936. Sami Van Ingen, a veteran in alternative Finnish films, is the great grandson of Eugene Van Ingen and grandson of de Wet Van Ingen. Sami describes his great grandfather’s firm as a “place of many bewildering sights and smells of my childhood.” He has made 15 films and three of his films focus on his family and Mysore.

Often described as “one of the best” of a diminishing tribe of professionals, E J Van Ingen decided to transfer 90% of the osteological collections to the Regional Museum of Natural History, Mysore when the Van Ingen’s Mysore studio was shut down. Likewise, he donated the bulk of the primate skull collections to the Anthropological Survey of India.

Most of the mounts in the trophy room of Mysore Palace were processed by Van Ingens and, probably a few by another taxidermist of Mysore, Theobald, whose firm did not last long. Yet, Theobald brothers processed some early mounts and they can be found in India and elsewhere. There was another taxidermist, named Ganeshiah, in Mysore.

Maharajakumari Indrakshi Devi, daughter of late Maharaja Jayachamaraja Wadiyar, recalls, “The senior Van Ingen was a good friend of my father and used to visit the Palace often. For me, growing up with lifelike wild animals in the Palace, thanks to the wonderful work of the Van Ingens, had its own positive effect. Thus, all of us developed an abiding passion for forests and wild animals.”

Edwin Joubert Van Ingen passed away in Mysore in 2013, leaving behind a small portion of the valuable collection like a rare 90-inch long ivory in his old bungalow, Bisil Manti, a portion of which had housed the factory. With the closure of the firm and the death of the last survivor, a unique legacy of Mysore faded away.

We had many tiger mounts done by them at home in India. Their workmanship was amazing. The facial expression of their big cats was the best i have seen ever anywhere!

My grandmother was distantly related to them as well!

They were an integral part of the golden days of hunting in India.

All gone now! Sad.


AR

They did my dad's leopard & Tahr

Some of the info in the article does not tally with others I have read a few years ago.

While the name has a Dutch origin, I understood that the family actually came to India from the UK and were very British.

I also heard that when Edwin died in 2013 (he may have been a bachelor), there were no relatives left in India and all the nieces and nephews were in the UK etc.

I also read that a local politician, criminal had taken over the property, claiming that he was an adopted son!