- Creation
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Creator (Definite): Liv Emma Thorsen
- Current Holder(s)
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Thorsen uses the example of 'Barry the Saint Bernard' to present a conception of specimen-making in which narrative and image-making play as important a role as physicality and taxidermic texhnique. As she states, 'The stuffed Barry is an example of material objects that invite us to talk about what they are in themselves, as well as what they mean... Barry's biography serves as a good example of the shifting ways in which society and culture influence representations of animals in natural history museums. It also highlights the importance of taxidermy in shifting out gaze and thus molding our conceptions of the natural.' (128)
Dividing the historical Barry into two categories - 'myth and imagination' and 'nature and beastliness' - that broadly correlate to the living and the preserved dog, Thorsen suggests that 'The two fields are unified in the stuffed dog and in the history of the mount itself.' (129) Ultimately, she argues, it was a re-mounting of the Barry specimen in 1923 that 'materialized the imagined Saint Bernard and made it a tangible truth.' (145)
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CitesAlbert Payson Terhune, A Book of Famous Dogs (New York, 1937).
Description:'A dramatic end renders stories about the faithful dog especially moving. In A Book of Famous Dogs (1937) Albert Payson Terhune weaves elements from many of the different versions... Barry is retired at ten years of age, but five years later he rushes out to save a soldier who has lost his way; the soldier stabs the dog to death because he thinks Barry is a wild beast.' (139)
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CitesAlfred Berbou, Le chien (Paris, 1883).
Description:
'A picture of an early display of Barry shows the dog in a cubical glass case, carrying a pyrimidal vitrine divided in three sections, each section containing two small mammals, all crowned by a perch supporting an owl with outspread wings (fig. 6.I).' (133) -
CitesBarry der Menschenretter (specimen)
Description:Thorsen claims that 'Barry's biography as a museum object can be conveyed along two lines, one following his hide, a second following his skull. Together they lead to the scientific construction of the historical dog made in 2000 by curator and archeozoologist Marc Nussbaumer, taxidermist Christoph Meier, and scientific illustrator Niklaus Heeb. Barry's skin had already been stuffed three times: immediately after the dog died in 1814, once more in 1826, and again in 1923. No picture survives of the first mount that was to be seen in the Museum der Naturgeschichte Helvetiens, the natural cabinet that predated the foundation of Naturhistorisches Museum der Burgergemeinde Bern in 1832. A new preparation was made in 1826 by technical assistant Hans Caspar Rohrdorf, showing Barry in a humble position that could be interpreted as representing the dog's devotion to humans.' (140)
'By 1923, the stuffed Barry had badly deteriorated... The hide was cracking and the body was collapsing... Taxidermist Georg Ruprecht made a "new" Barry in 1923 and mounted the skin using the dermoplastic method in which the skin was arranged on a life-true mannequin... But Ruprecht had no pictures of Barry for a model. The only remains of the dog were the skin, skull, and perhaps some parts of the skeleton. Instead of using the bone material to settle the proportions of the historic dog, Ruprecht remodeled the dog according to the standards of the Saint Bernard breed that had been constructed after Barry's lifetime... In the 1920s, a perfect Saint Bernard was to express benevolence, dignity, intelligence, strength, and endurance. The ideal head was large, massive, and the stop was abrupt and well-defined, the muzzle straight from nose to stop. The forelegs were to be of good lengthm perfectly straight and strong in bone, and the hind legs muscular. The head was given most attention and the highest points in the ring. The Barry we see today reflects this aesthetic.
Conversely, Ruprecht's mount resembles a painting from about 1695 og a hospice dog with a clearly defined stop... Ruprecht neglected Barry's skull but paid homage to both the hospice dogs and tot he Saint Bernard standards that favoured heavy, broad heads and long legs. Thus the new Barry anchored the breed standards to the history of the famous rescue dogs, rather than the reverse. This Barry is still to be seen in the museum's entrance hall. He holds his head in an upright, alert position, as if he is looking for rough weather and snowslides, and his posture performs a very different "dogness" compared to that of the old, humble Barry.' (141-143)
'Barry's bicentenial anniversary was celebrated by reconstructing him once more - but this time only on paper. By using the skull as the basis for a model of his head, scrutinizing the hide to find the right proportions, studying the photograph of Barry before Ruprecht had mounted him, and looking for differences in the texture of his coat, the historic Barry was reconstructed on paper. The research team discovered that not only had the head been modeled with a stop, but the distance between the eyes had also been broadened to make it more massive. The "Elbogenschwiele" - the wear of the coat on the elbows - had been placed too high on the legs. This means that the mount from 1923 is about ten centimeters taller than Barry had been, making the dog nearly as tall as he is long, proportions that are absent in all dog breeds.' (143-144)
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CitesBrita Brenna, 'The Frames of Specimens: Glass Cases in Bergen Museum Around 1900', in Liv Emma Thorsen, et. al. (eds), Animals on Display: the Creaturely in Museums, Zoos, and Natural History. 2013. pp. 37-57.
Description:
'As Brita Brenna demonstrates in chapter 2, the glass case gives museum items their import and authority.' (133) -
Cited byA. Dodd et. al., 'Introduction', in L.E. Thorsen, et. al. (eds), Animals on Display: the Creaturely in Museums, Zoos, and Natural History. 2013. pp. 1-11.
Description:'Liv Emma Thorsen confronts the fact and artefact of Barry, the most famous Saint Bernard rescue dog. Thorsen finds the stuffed Barry, on display in the Natural History Museum of Bern sunce 1814, to be materially emblematic of the "Barrylore" surrounding the animal. Thorsen shows how, through the practice of taxidermy, the natural and cultural history of the Saint Bernard interesected - and in turn, how this museum specimen came to represent both the iconic "faithful dog" and the representative type of its breed. Literally disembodied, with the skull and skin of "the real" Barry now housed in different parts of the museum, Barry's display nevertheless retains an aura of authenticity. Because (rather than in spite) of how this animal (now behind glass) materializes the imagined Saint Bernard, it continues to inspire modern natural history museum visitors.' (8-9)
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Cited byGuro Flinterud, 'Polar Bear Knut and His Blog', in Thorsen et. al., Animals on Display (2013), pp. 192-213
Description:'In a sense he [Knut] could be compared to Barry the Saint Bernard (see Thorsen, chapter 6), in that both animals had an emblematic identity that was filled with content according to shifting opinions.' (210)
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QuotesFriedrich Meisner, Alpenrosen (1816)
Description:'The Swiss naturalist and alpinist Karl Friedrich August Meisner describes the [Great Saint Bernard] pass as "naked, barren and surrounded by peaks covered with eternal snow." (129)
'A description of Barry's character and abilities, and the reason why he was stuffed for display in the museum in Bern, is given by Meisner in the yearbook Alpenrosen in 1816:
"'For twelve years Barry was tireless and faithful in his service for the victims, and he alone has throughout his life saved more than forty percent from death. The eagerness he demonstrated through his deeds was extraordinary. He never needed to be admonished in this service, nothing could keep him from in the monestary as soon as the sky became clouded, fog appeared and blizzards announced thenselves from a distance; from that point on he wod restlessly and barking range around, and he would not tire, again and again returning to the dangerous places, whether or not he could prevent anyone from sinking down onto the snow, or dig up one of those already buried under the snow. And if he could not help himself, he would in long leaps rush back to the monastery and try to get help. When the noble faithful animal grew old and weak, the honorable prior of the monestary sent him with his servant to Bern requesting that after Barry's death that followed in 1814, he should be displayed in our museum. "It is," this sensitive man wrote, "pleasant and at the same time a comfort for me to think that this faithful dog that has saved the lives of so many people, will not soon be forgotten after his death.""
Meisner explains why the dog was naturalized, and provides the reader with the canine's principal virtues: faithfulness, courage, and intelligence.' (131)
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QuotesKate Sanborn, Educated Dogs of Today (Boston, 1916).
Description:'the most imaginative statement on the connection between Barry's historical identity and the mounted dog has been given by Kate Sanborn. To her, the fact that the stuffed dog was on display in the museum did not rally her fantasy. In Educated Dogs of Today (1916) Sanborn presents Barry as Saint Bernard's own dog. The dog that lived nearly one thousand years ago is still to be seen, and is truly, to quote Sanborn, "a triumph of the taxidermist's art"!' (139)
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QuotesPeter Scheitlin, Versich einer vollstandigen Thierseelenkunde (Stutgart and Tubngen, 1840).
Description:'Barry becomes a superhero dog for the first time in a story that was recounted in Swiss professor Peter Scheitlin's book Versuch einer vollstandigen Thierseelenkunde (1840). According to Swiss geologist and cynologist Albert Heim, the most imaginative narrative about Barry can be related to Scheitlin's book on the souls of animals. Scheitlin had met Barry in 1812 when the dog still lived in the hospice - Barry had in fact growled at Scheitlin. The old dog's aggression cannot have affected his admirer, however, who many years later wrote confidently, "If I had been a miserable man, you would not have snarled at me." Barry was a perfect animal for a naturalist who was collecting samples to demonstrate that animals have spiritual gifts.
To Scheitlin, Barry was "Der heilige auf dem St. Bernard," the Holy One of Saint Bernard, and thus the most admirable dog known in history. As he directly addressed the dog in his eulogy, "You were a big, profound man-dog with a kind soul for the unhappy." If Barry had been a human being, what could he have achieved? He would have founded hundreds of holy orders and monasteries. Indeed, Scheitlin's enthusiasm pushed him so far as to present Barry as a saviour in human form, declaring, "You are the opposite of a sexton, You render the dead their resurrection." This sentence introduces Barry's most famous deed: saving a little boy from perishing in the snow.' (137-138)
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QuotesWilliam Youatt, The Dog (Philadelphia, 1852).
Description:'William Youatt considered Barry the highlight of the Bern collection, referring to the dog "as the noble quadruped whose remains constitute one of the most interesting specimens in the museum in Bern."' (140)
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Related toBarry der Menschenretter (dog)
Description:Thorsen describes Barry as follows: 'The dog died in 1814, at fourteen years of age. He became a legend during his own lifetime'. (128)
'Born in 1800, he served as a rescue dog for twelve years, an unusually long service for a dog that had to endure tough work under extreme conditions... Barry lived another two years in Bern before he died in 1814.' (131)
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Related toKarl Friedrich August Meisner
Description:
Thorsen notes that Meisner 'was appointed professor of natural history and geography in 1805, and he corresponded with scientists outside Switzerland. He roamed the mountains and collected, observed, and drew from nature, writing several books on natural history. From 1801 onward he classified and organized the collections in the naturalia cabinet in Bern, in which Barry later was displayed.' (132)
