Around 100 fossils, skeletons and mineralized panels featured in Sotheby's Natural History Sale

On October 2 Sotheby’s will be hosting a third sale in France devoted exclusively to the Wonders of Nature.

Around 100 fossils, skeletons and mineralized panels, from private collections in Europe, the United States and Asia, will delight connoisseurs of curiosities from the prehistoric plant and animal world. These extraordinary items count as veritable works of art – no longer the preserve of natural history museums, but increasingly sought-after by private collectors.

Works from the Kashiwagi Museum, Japan

Yasutada Kashiwagi, a doctor in computer science, discovered a passion for fossils and minerals after attending the first Tokyo International Mineral Fair in 1988. He at once began to start a collection, with an especial interest in ammonites. In 1993 he decided to put his collection on show, and created his own museum in Nagao, west of Tokyo. Around thirty lots from this collection, assembled over a 24-year period, will be offered at Sotheby’s.

One of the most exciting items promises to be a pair of mammoth tusks (Mammuthus primigenius) found in Russia and dating from the Late Pleistocene period. The mammoth, Ice Age symbol par excellence, developed tusks never matched in the animal kingdom – both to defend itself against prehistoric man, and to scrape away the snow to find the food it needed. Its tusks took form at birth, and continued to grow until the end of its life. The pair of tusks to be offered by Sotheby’s are believed to come from an individual mammoth about 50 years old (est. €30,000-50,000 / $37,000-62,000)*... artdaily.org