Reinhold Rau (1932-2006) was a taxidermist and natural historian who attempted to rebreed the extinct Quagga. It was Rau who discovered the Quagga was actually a subspecies of the plains Zebra not its own species. In the 1980’s the Quagga project was born with the aim to rebreed the Quagga and then reintroduce it the plains of Africa.
There are 23 known stuffed and mounted Quagga throughout the world.
The picture was taken by David Chancellor and is part of his series Cases, documenting the cased taxidermy in the Natural History Museum, Cape Town. The specimen itself, is the one Rau worked on in the 1960’s.
Chancellor’s work also documents the more gruesome and bloody reality of hunting and taxidermy in South Africa. His work is worth spending some time looking at, as he has been named Nikon photographer of the year 3 times won the Taylor Wessing Portrait Prize in 2010.
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