By John Kelly
Sunday, November 30, 2008
There's a stuffed horse at Mount Vernon, a really good-looking white horse that made me wonder: Where did they get the horse that supposedly looks so much like George Washington's horse? Did they raise a horse and then kill it for the display or did they just wait for a matching horse to die? It didn't look old, so could they have killed it just to stuff it?
-- Northern Virginia reader
When he got the nod to provide the distinctive white gelding on which a forensically accurate reproduction of Gen. George Washington would sit at Mount Vernon's new museum, Frank Zitz put the word out: "I need a white horse."
Frank is the head of Frank J. Zitz and Co., an outfit in Rhinebeck, N.Y., that can provide a taxidermy version of anything from a songbird to an elephant. One of Washington's best-known horses was Blueskin, a distinctive white horse the exhibit's curators wanted to evoke.
Frank knew that Amish farmers in Lancaster County, Pa., have many workhorses. Through contacts in that community, he let it be known that he was in the market for a large white horse, preferably one with its thick winter coat. If any were to die in the coming year, he might be interested. One did, and Frank sent someone to pick it up.
Not the entire horse. After its various exterior dimensions were measured, the horse was skinned -- "just like you would skin a beef cow," Frank explained -- and the skin salted and dried. This was sent to a tannery on Long Island for treatment. "Then I get the horse back completely clean," he said. "It looks just like a fur coat with hooves on it."
The horse's measurements were used to construct a body-shaped Styrofoam armature. Clay veins and muscles were applied. The Styrofoam was mounted on a steel frame.
Frank said that most people think taxidermy is like embalming. "It's really nothing like that," he said. "It's really sculpture. . . . Posturing the animals is everything."
The exhibit depicts Valley Forge, a low point in Washington's military campaigns. Frank made the horse's neck droop with fatigue. "He was supposed to look regal but also supposed to look tired."
Armature in place, the skin was draped over and glued down, the seams sewn, glass eyes inserted. The horse got a wash with some whitening shampoo and a blow-dry. Then detail work was performed: airbrushing around the nostrils and mouth. (By the way, the stuffed horse has something in common with the real Washington: His teeth are dentures.)
Once the horse was in place, the figure of Washington (made by Studio EIS of Brooklyn) was lowered onto it.
The entire taxidermy process took about three weeks. The result is an incredibly lifelike horse, even if it is a bit smaller than Frank would have liked. "Honestly, I was looking for one with a bigger, heavier neck, more of a war horse." But when you're dependent on the random mortality of Amish farm horses, you take what you can get.
Frank's five-person company has done many museum installations as well as the trophy rooms of big-game hunters. It also did the mule that's a few feet away from George and Blueskin at Mount Vernon. It, too, came from Amish country.
Now is a great time to visit Washington's plantation home. Not only is it decorated for Christmas, but there are special holiday-related events on tap, including chocolate-making demonstrations, a massive gingerbread replica of the mansion made by former White House pastry chef Roland Mesnier and a live camel. The "Christmas camel" was inspired by one that Washington paid to have brought to Mount Vernon in 1787 to entertain his guests.
Answer Man asked Frank if he'd ever stuffed a camel. Naturally, he has.
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