Screens
Used to provide protection from draughts and the heat of fires, and/or for decoration, screens have been in use for centuries. In the Middle Ages they tended to be fixtures, whereas screens of many kinds were made after the Restoration. Those with uprights and a central panel became popular at this time, although the terms horse screen and cheval screen were not employed until later. Folding screens were also available, as were pole screens with tripod feet, but it was not until the first half of the eighteenth century that pole screens became common. Screen panels were often painted or decorated with needlework. In the early nineteenth century the traditional forms persisted while banner screens – which consisted of fabric suspended from a cross-bar on an upright pole - also became popular. Other nineteenth-century screen phenomena included horse screens featuring stuffed birds, such as CIRC.19-1961, a style foreshadowed by eighteenth-century feather-work screens.

Taxidermy
The earliest surviving examples of taxidermy (stuffing the skins of animals) date back to the sixteenth century. Early on taxidermy was displayed in ‘Cabinets of Curiosities’. Over time these collections developed into private and public museums used for study. It was during the nineteenth century that taxidermy, practiced professionally and by amateurs, became extremely lucrative and widespread, and that there was high demand for naturalistic and decorative taxidermy. As animals began to be illustrated in more active stances, surrounded by other wildlife, and as more sophisticated taxidermy techniques developed, taxidermists started to present their subjects less stiffly, often in groups and alongside items such as artificial leaves. The 1851 Great Exhibition featured many examples of realistic and artistic taxidermy, increasing the interest in such work. Decorative taxidermy was driven more by beauty that truth to nature, although here too vitality and abundance were often emphasised. Sometimes amusement was the aim: ‘comic’ or ‘grotesque’ scenes showing gaming squirrels, fencing rats and the like satirised humans. Taxidermy was not, however, universally loved. Various groups concerned about animal cruelty and extinction - such as Fur, Fin and Feather Folk (1889) and Plumage League (1889) which were absorbed into the Society for the Protection of Birds (1891, from 1904 the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds) - formed in the nineteenth century. One of the RSPB’S major successes was the Importation of Plumage (Prohibition) Act, an act of United Kingdom legislation passed in 1921. In the latter half of the nineteenth century in particular birds were used extensively for domestic displays and fashion, especially colourful varieties such as hummingbirds and tanagers, collected from places including Central and South America and India. Realism tended to be eschewed: birds from different continents were regularly displayed together and the poses that birds were made to adopt were designed to show off their feathers rather than demonstrate avian anatomy.

Bird Screens
Stuffed birds were regularly displayed in glass domes referred to as 'shades' and used on hats. Bird screens were also popular from the latter half of the nineteenth century into the Edwardian period. They were typically positioned in front of an inactive fireplace during the summer or used to flank the fireplace and they came in two dominant forms. Horse firescreens featuring glass cabinets containing birds were very popular. The frames tended to be made from turned and carved wood which was sometimes gilded or from dowel or bamboo. Alternatively, a large bird such as a peacock or a heron could be displayed on a stand, its wings and tail dramatically splayed out behind the head and breast. Numerous examples of the former type of screens, including CIRC.19-1961, have survived, whereas screens displaying a lone unprotected bird are now very rare. Although the carving on the frame of CIRC.19-1961 is not particularly intricate, the fact that the birds have a range of different eyes indicates that the piece was good quality and expensive. Birds, like humans, have different coloured eyes, but this was not always reflected in taxidermy because it was costly to carry a wide range of eye options. The maker of this screen is unknown, as is often the case with decorative nineteenth-century taxidermy. Such pieces were often made in London, by companies including Ashmead.

This object is likely to contain arsenic, which was commonly used in taxidermy for skin preservation and as an insecticide from the early nineteenth century until around the 1980s. Other hazards may also be present.