Darwin, Sinke van Tongeren Sculptures

Sinke & van Tongeren exhibited this extremely rare Auzoux Gorilla by carefully taking apart the model and creating an exploded view of this historically important piece. When viewed from a particular angle all pieces come together to form the original shape. It was part of the exhibition called ‘TIER’ at MOA in The Netherlands The story of a remarkable 19th century anatomical model created just four years after Darwin unleashed a political storm with his theories on human evolution. The publication of Charles Darwin’s controversial On the Origin of Species in 1859 caused debates to rage about human evolution, debates which witnessed the politicisation of a creature whose existence had only recently been confirmed by modern science. On one side of the argument was the Darwinian camp; on the other were those opposed to Darwin’s theory, such as Richard Owen, the famed Director of the Natural History Museum and a man who, interestingly, coined the word ‘dinosaur’. Tales of the creature in question had endured for centuries, but up until 1847 it remained a myth, an unknown. This all changed thanks to the missionary Thomas Savage and the anatomist Jeffries Wyman who wrote a paper for the journal of the Boston Society of Natural History in which they described a new species: Troglodytes gorilla. (Later, in 1929, Harvard zoologist Harold Coolidge would apply the synonym Gorilla gorilla...

A huge 19th Century French Birdcage with a composition of nineteen Fine Taxidermy birds. We can imagine this being an amazing orchestra of beautiful tunes. Among the musicians are a ...

The Duyvenbode’s Lory (Chalcopsitta duivenbodei) is found in northern New Guinea. Named after Maarten Dirk van Renesse van Duivenbode (June 2, 1804 – March 31, 1878) who was a Dutch merchant, trader of bird skins for fashion and naturalia. The colour palette of this bird is very special. Almost bronze like. A great match with the antique velvet base. Note: All animals used for their work came from captivity and died on natural causes. No animals are raised or killed for their work. The works of Dutch Artists Sinke and van Tongeren are inspired by golden age old master painters...

This monumental work is inspired on the famous quote of Darwin. “If everyone were cast in the same mould, there would be no such thing as beauty.” It is because of this quote that we added Darwin to our name Darwin, Sinke & van Tongeren. This quote also fits our goal to do all our taxidermy work without the use of factory moulds that are typical for contemporary taxidermy. We sculpt all our bodies by hand and therefor can create the unique poses like how they line up in this mayor work. We combined many different birds with many different features from many different points of the compass. Together they form a 17th Century like composition of colours and poses. This collection varies from the rare African Congo Peafowl and a gracious Stanley Crane to a regular Dutch chicken. Quoting Charles Darwin...

KING OF THE MUSEUM Since we started, we always wanted to make a very large crocodile. Wishful thinking, we thought it was. But now we were able to do so. We were lucky we could obtain a Nile crocodile...

Title: Trophees Defence An impressive set of 12 sculptures creating a wall of weaponry. Real antique horns and antlers facing the viewer and forcing it into defence. From left ...

A cute artwork with two young Ring-tailed Coatis (Nasua nasua) playing with a piece of fruit. Set on a wooden plinth. This object is currently on display at JAMB, Pimlico Rd, Lond...

A unique hand-sculptured mannequin creates a one of a kind work of fine Taxidermy. Al the bare skin parts are hand-painted. This common African Ostrich is 2 meters high and built on...