Sinke & Van Tongeren

A head mount of a black crowned crane (Balearica pavonina) rests atop an antique wooden sphere. The bold, rounded base contrasts with the slender, graceful neck of the bird. This ba...

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 ...

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...

A cockatoo stands in a lively, dancing pose on an antique gilded base. It balances carefully on coral spheres, giving the work a sense of lightness and movement. The bird’s feathers ...

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...

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...

This elegant composition features a Cacatua leadbeateri, known for its soft pink plumage and lively, inquisitive character. The bird is suspended within an antique leather ring, hung...

The third series of photographs by fine Taxidermists Sinke & Van Tongeren After observing and analysing so many 17th century paintings, they were inspired to create a new series of work focused on still life masterpieces. They chose photography as the medium to portray their fine Taxidermy work interpreted through vanitas still lifes. The collection, ‘Les Peintures des Taxidermistes’, comprises eight works. Vanitas still lifes were enormously popular in the 17th century, often inspired by biblical themes and the saying that “All is vanity”. It reminded the viewer of his or her own mortality. For these series of still lifes Sinke & van Tongeren not only created meaningful scenes of taxidermy, they also mined their enormous collection of great finds to gather the most beautiful and unusual antiques to complement each scene. Title of this work; ’RÉUNION D’OISEAUX ÉTRANGERS’ Cabinets of curiosity were of monumental importance in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries. Assembling them with interesting and rare objects was a competitive hobby amongst the elite, and to collect a great number of mounted species from everywhere in the world was the Holy Grail of the day. For ‘Réunion d’oiseaux étrangers’, we created that Holy Grail again, but this time stocking our cabinet with seemingly live species. This plentiful composition is staged in a cabinet with different boxes holding rare species such as a Toco Toucan, Scarlet ibis, Cock of the Rock...