Page 345 - The Secret Museum

Rivers in Oxford each own a medium-sized lion – the smaller ones could well be

hiding unrecognized on a family mantelpiece. The two museums also own a pageboy
each. The boys are sculpted in the same pose as the child I saw, their arms in prayer
in front of their heads, but each one is very slightly different, probably each made by
a different artist. No deer, peacocks, conches, lilies, ducks or elephants have turned
up yet.

The bees arrived at the V&A with a note: ‘This gilded beetle [sic] is from the
throne of Theebaw, last King of Burmah, & was brought from Mandalay by the late
Major General Elphinstone Waters Begbie CB, DSO, in 1899.’ They are kept in

storage, as the museum can’t display everything, although these bees are very rare
and, ideally, will be on show in the future. There are two others in Oxford but,
otherwise, there really is nothing else like them in the world.