“The Corner Case Contains an Arctic Scene”

Abstract

Following examples such as The Arctic and the British Imagination by David and Imagining the Arctic by Lewis-Jones this work focuses on the changing interpretations of the idea of the Arctic as it follows the interpretation of a taxidermied polar bear over approximately sixty years in three different exhibitions. Beginning in the 1880s this polar bear represented the resources available in the Arctic at international exhibitions. When the polar bear entered the Horniman Free Museum (London) in 1890 the interpretation changed to represent the wildlife of the Arctic in an “Arctic Scene”. Finally, in the twentieth century, the polar bear’s interpretation changed again to stress the evolutionary differences between large mammals, specifically those of the Arctic. Although the museum sold the polar bear in 1948, the analysis of this object in these institutions presents a model for understanding the construction and colonial interpretations of the Arctic in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.