Lion Attacking a Dromedary
Copper plate etching on a museum sign podium
2025
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Lion Attacking a Dromedary is a 19th-century taxidermy diorama by Édouard Verreaux, previously housed at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It depicts a fictional scene of a Barbary lion attacking a native North African man on a dromedary. Its racialising depiction is grounded not in material realities but in the European imagination of ‘exotic’ lands, North Africans, and their animals. The display became highly controversial in the 21st century when it was revealed that not only was the Barbary lion taxidermied, so too were parts of the human mannequin. The Verreaux brothers were known to have previously stolen from Indigenous peoples’ graves for their taxidermy.
For years before its permanent closure in 2023, the Carnegie Museum added a disclaimer to the display, signage acknowledging its unethical, racial origins. The display and its accompanying sign raise questions of post-mortem ethics, colonial legacies, and ethical tensions that infuse contemporary museum spaces.