The creation of a habitat diorama requires the effort of many museum specialists, trained in different areas of expertise, including the realistic reproduction of plants and animals, the illusion of atmospheric space and the design of an architectural alcove. Above all, museum dioramas require an institutional home that is committed to the considerable planning and costs that installing such exhibits requires. At the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History, the exhibition of its specimens has always had a priority alongside cutting edge scientific research. The current Museum building, opened in 1925, features a Great Hall specifically designed for its remarkable dinosaur collection. As a backdrop to the Brontosaurus and other dinosaurs, the Museum commissioned artist Rudolph F. Zallinger to paint a 110 foot long mural showing the evolutionary history of the Earth. Completed in 1947, “The Age of Reptiles” mural depicted prehistoric plants and animals in realistic landscapes based on the artist’s collaboration with scientists. Today it is touted as Yale University’s most recognizable feature.
Like “The Age of Reptiles” mural, the 11 habitat dioramas of the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History are regarded as masterpieces of a specialized form of art merged with science. This new approach was instigated by museum director Albert Eide Parr, a scientist who went on to bring his innovative ideas based on ecology and public education to the American Museum of Natural History. Most of the habitat dioramas were created between the 1940s and 1960s by artists James Perry Wilson, Francis Lee Jaques, and preparator Ralph C. Morrill. These dioramas portray a variety of North American biotopes and illustrate how geology and climate shape biological diversity, and how animal and plant species evolve in relation to specific ecological conditions in nature.
Continuing its tradition of merging art and science, in 2005 the Yale Peabody Museum unveiled a lifesize bronze sculpture of Torosaurus (the most famed of the dinosaur discoveries made by the Museum’s founder), created by sculptor and preparator Michael Anderson. Following some 30 years at the Museum, Anderson led a four year restoration of the Hall of North American Dioramas that concluded in 2019. This involved the extensive cleaning and repair of the original taxidermy mounts and the restoring and replacing of botanical specimens and models in the foreground. In his informative account of working behind the scenes, Museum Model Making at Yale Peabody, Michael documents the fascinating and highly specialized profession of being a museum preparator.
Over the many decades that the Bison Diorama was on public display at the Yale Peabody Museum, it had deteriorated with age, despite being behind glass. During the recent restoration, the diorama was given new life; the tears and cracks in the skins of the historic Bison specimens were repaired along with their broken tails. During the process, it was discovered that arsenic had been used as a preservative, creating a hazardous dust. Also the fur of the Bison and the Black tailed Prairie Dogs had become faded and required a recolouration process done by hand and with an airbrush. In regard to the latter, it was necessary to take into account the darker and more rich colour of the painted animals in the background and contrast this to the faded colour of the mounted animals in the foreground. The foreground vegetation had also aged over the years, the original grasses were created in the early 1950’s from real grass that had been dried and tied into clumps that required replacement with more botanically accurate and realistic looking specimens of “buffalo grass.” Even the small orange coloured Scarlet Globemallow (Sphaeralcea coccinea), a common forage species for bison, had to be recreated by the laborious sculpting, moldmaking and casting process.
The three specimens in the Bison Diorama (a bull, a cow and a calf) were originally collected in Wyoming in 1888 during a museum expedition led by Jenness Richardson, chief taxidermist at the American Museum of Natural History. At the time, this iconic national species was near extinction and natural history museums were in competition to collect some of the last remaining wild animals for their zoological displays and scientific collections. The US National Museum had initiated this trend in 1886 when it sent taxidermist William T. Hornaday to Montana to collect six bison specimens.
The Yale Peabody Museum acquired three of the historic bison specimens from New York in 1945 and these became the centrepiece of a specially designed display in the Hall of North American Dioramas. The background painting of a specific landscape in Wyoming was by the renowned wildlife artist Francis Lee Jaques (1887 ‒ 1969). The foreground vegetation for the diorama was created by preparators Ralph C. Morrill (1902 – 1996) and Dave Parsons.
The bison group created by Richardson in 1889 was a new and controversial form of museum exhibition, considered by opposing curators to be non scientific. A published illustration of the display depicts two specimens, a bison cow and her calf, positioned in a family group that conveys a caring maternal relationship. Also the natural habitat of the two animals is represented in the foreground of Richardson’s display, an auxiliary component not normally included in the conventional scientific displays of natural history museums.
This early example of an animal group later came to be recognized for its cultural significance and artistic innovation. Increasingly museum taxidermists followed the example of Richardson and began to use sculptural techniques to produce more lifelike and animated recreations of zoological specimens. An important factor in the evolution of such groups was the art of reproducing foliage and other accessories that made up the exhibit foreground.
The production of habitat dioramas requires expert artists able to replicate the plants and animals that are part of the biological landscape. The Forest Margin Diorama at the Peabody Museum, completed in 1950, showcases the ecosystems and regional habitats of Connecticut. It recreates a woodland scene in the fall with its bright autumn foliage and features a Virginia Deer (Odocoileus virginianus) buck that was mounted by Ralph C. Morill. A second diorama depicts the beach and salt marsh of the coastal region at Milford Point at 11 am on June 15. A third diorama recreates a specialized, acidic New England wetland habitat. The backgrounds for these dioramas were painted by James Perry Wilson and are considered masterworks for their precise attention to scientific detail and the skillful rendering of distance and space in the landscape.
Over the years, the diorama leaves created by Morrill in the Forest Margin Diorama had cracked and become more fragile, drooping down like butterflies that had closed their wings. To replace them, Anderson created epoxy leaves on aluminum branches that included small bud remnant details and exhibited symptoms of tar spot, a common fungal disease affecting maple trees.
Another challenge involving the production of leaves to bring new life to an aging diorama foreground required that Anderson replace sprigs of Red Osier Dogwood that had faded. To make the leaves, he used a special 3D fabric on which he could print the images, an innovative solution to creating accurate replicas of foreground accessories.
To restore the foreground of the Forest Margin Diorama, which featured an overhead canopy of Sugar Maple leaves illuminated from above, new leaves had to be fabricated. Anderson explains how preparator Ralph C. Morrill choreographed the complex production of leaves in the late 1940’s: “He had a team of art students from Southern Connecticut University cutting leaves one by one out of crepe paper. Lines were penned in along the central and secondary veins with some tertiary veins added. Wires were glued along the central vein and the leaves were dipped in colored wax with a quick spin to remove excess wax. Final touches included spattering oil paint over the surface, burning insect holes, and adding thin spray blushes of color.”
