Hippopotamus in Silver on Royal Blue Met This little helix atrolabiata snail

This little helix atrolabiata snail was documented by Wilhelm Kobelt in Russia in 1903

The jacket is 4 inches tall

The original dress is held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art (accession 1981

The boot is 4 inches tall

Hippopotamus in Silver on Royal Blue Met This little helix atrolabiata snailOne of my favourite things about old natural history illustrations are the number of animals that were obviously drawn from descriptions, by artists who had never seen the real thing. So many old hippo drawings just looked all wrong, with little tiny heads! I finally found a happy hippo with a properly gigantic head in the 1895 book Brehm's Life of Animals: A Complete Natural History for Popular Home Instruction and for the Use of Schools. The