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By: "ES - FGS" (Fellow of the Geological Society)
Date: Unknown, suspected early 1800s.
Format: Hand-colored lithograph print
Description: A man lounges in an easy chair, surrounded by the menacing ghostly skeletons of prehistoric monsters.
The text says:
Is this a Mammoth ogling me in sleep
Its muzzle towards my chair, come let me bone thee
I have thee not, and yet I see thee still
Art thou not lovely fossil, sensible
To feeling, as to thought, or art thou but
The Mammoth of my dream
The format parodies MacBeth's Dagger of the Mind speech (act 2, scene 1) [sparknotes.com]:
Is this a dagger which I see before me,
The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee.
I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.
Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible
To feeling as to sight? Or art thou but
A dagger of the mind, a false creation
Proceeding from the heat-oppressèd brain?
It is unclear to me what "bone" is meant to mean in this context. According Etymology Online, the meaning of "to study" (i.e. "bone up") is slang from the 1880s [etymonline.com], not 1820s. Maybe it means "remove the bones of"?
The best discussion I've found of this image comes from a stock photo website [sciencephoto.com]. The artist is unknown, but "FGS" probably means "Fellow of the Geological Society". The choice on the two creatures depicted, a mammoth and a pterodactyl, indicate it was probably made in the early 1800s. The ghostly pterodactyl, which appears to be either eating the man, or measuring his skull as with calipers, is labelled "Ornithocephalus longirostris", which places the composition at least after 1819 (when the name was first used). The species is now known as Pterodactylus antiquus. The mammoth is depicted with tusks upside down, and the piece may be from the time (or referencing the time) that mammoths were believed to have been active and fearsome carnivores.
The most interesting thing about this piece to me is the mammoth's tusks. Rembrandt Peale's early reconstruction of the mammoth with tusks pointed downward was evidently a reflection of geopolitics as well as scientific consideration.
The renown French naturalist Buffon had said in the 1750s that animals in the New World were "degenerate" compared to their Old World counterparts -- lesser creatures, smaller in stature. Thomas Jefferson famously sent Buffon a stuffed moose as a retort. The best (and biggest) retort came when the artist and showman Charles Wilson Peale excavated a mastodon for his museum in 1801. Referred to at the time as a "mammoth" or "incognitum" (the term "mastodon" would be coined decades later), it became the second fossil animal to ever be reconstructed from bones. The mounted animal stood 11 feet tall at the shoulder. Mammoths were believed to be carnivores, and Peale's promotional material informed patrons that the animal, according to what he claimed was Shawnee legend, was "huge as the frowning precipice, cruel as the bloody panther, swift as the descending eagle, and terrible as the Angel of Night." Massive and terrifying, it was clear evidence that American animals were by no means inferior to European animals, and the public loved it. It kicked off a "mammoth fever" in the United States, with merchants wising up to the animal's branding potential. Perhaps the interpretation of a carnivorous diet was a hope borne out of a desire to make the animal more frightening and therefore enhance the animal's value as an symbol of American pride -- and also enhance the diameter of Peale's own wallet.
A second mounted mastodon was taken to Europe by Charles' son, Rembrandt. Rembrandt put the tusks on upside-down, believing that the carnivorous pachyderm might have used its tusks for spearing prey, or, if amphibious, to root around for shellfish. It made the fierce animal seem fiercer still. Charles initially opposed Rembrandt's choice, but soon flipped the tusks on his own mount.
Format: Hand-colored lithograph print
Description: A man lounges in an easy chair, surrounded by the menacing ghostly skeletons of prehistoric monsters.
The text says:
Is this a Mammoth ogling me in sleep
Its muzzle towards my chair, come let me bone thee
I have thee not, and yet I see thee still
Art thou not lovely fossil, sensible
To feeling, as to thought, or art thou but
The Mammoth of my dream
The format parodies MacBeth's Dagger of the Mind speech (act 2, scene 1) [sparknotes.com]:
Is this a dagger which I see before me,
The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee.
I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.
Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible
To feeling as to sight? Or art thou but
A dagger of the mind, a false creation
Proceeding from the heat-oppressèd brain?
It is unclear to me what "bone" is meant to mean in this context. According Etymology Online, the meaning of "to study" (i.e. "bone up") is slang from the 1880s [etymonline.com], not 1820s. Maybe it means "remove the bones of"?
The best discussion I've found of this image comes from a stock photo website [sciencephoto.com]. The artist is unknown, but "FGS" probably means "Fellow of the Geological Society". The choice on the two creatures depicted, a mammoth and a pterodactyl, indicate it was probably made in the early 1800s. The ghostly pterodactyl, which appears to be either eating the man, or measuring his skull as with calipers, is labelled "Ornithocephalus longirostris", which places the composition at least after 1819 (when the name was first used). The species is now known as Pterodactylus antiquus. The mammoth is depicted with tusks upside down, and the piece may be from the time (or referencing the time) that mammoths were believed to have been active and fearsome carnivores.
The most interesting thing about this piece to me is the mammoth's tusks. Rembrandt Peale's early reconstruction of the mammoth with tusks pointed downward was evidently a reflection of geopolitics as well as scientific consideration.
The renown French naturalist Buffon had said in the 1750s that animals in the New World were "degenerate" compared to their Old World counterparts -- lesser creatures, smaller in stature. Thomas Jefferson famously sent Buffon a stuffed moose as a retort. The best (and biggest) retort came when the artist and showman Charles Wilson Peale excavated a mastodon for his museum in 1801. Referred to at the time as a "mammoth" or "incognitum" (the term "mastodon" would be coined decades later), it became the second fossil animal to ever be reconstructed from bones. The mounted animal stood 11 feet tall at the shoulder. Mammoths were believed to be carnivores, and Peale's promotional material informed patrons that the animal, according to what he claimed was Shawnee legend, was "huge as the frowning precipice, cruel as the bloody panther, swift as the descending eagle, and terrible as the Angel of Night." Massive and terrifying, it was clear evidence that American animals were by no means inferior to European animals, and the public loved it. It kicked off a "mammoth fever" in the United States, with merchants wising up to the animal's branding potential. Perhaps the interpretation of a carnivorous diet was a hope borne out of a desire to make the animal more frightening and therefore enhance the animal's value as an symbol of American pride -- and also enhance the diameter of Peale's own wallet.
A second mounted mastodon was taken to Europe by Charles' son, Rembrandt. Rembrandt put the tusks on upside-down, believing that the carnivorous pachyderm might have used its tusks for spearing prey, or, if amphibious, to root around for shellfish. It made the fierce animal seem fiercer still. Charles initially opposed Rembrandt's choice, but soon flipped the tusks on his own mount.
Sources & further discussion:
Strangely, the best discussion of this image is found on a stock photo website. Most of the details above were suggested by the blurb written by Paul Stewart at the Science Photo Library [sciencephoto.com/]
Briefer but more comfortably citeable is The British Museum collections website [research.britishmuseum.org]
Information about Peale's mastodon:
Conniff, R. (April 2010). Mammoths and Mastodons: All American Monsters. Smithsonian Magazine. Link [smithsonianmag.com]
Semonin, P. (2004). Peale's Mastodon: The Skeleton in Our Closet. Common-Place, 4.2 Link [common-place-archives.org]
The previous article in book form: Semonin, P. (2000). American monster: How the nation's first prehistoric creature became a symbol of national identity. NYU Press.
Image yoinked from:
The British Museum collections website [research.britishmuseum.org]
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