fr 1 

 fe Tanning Villas 



of Field Museum 



For the last 38 years the Museum has always had at 

 least one tanning Villa. A solarium for the staff? A health 

 club for members? Not at all. The Museum's tanning 

 Villas have been Dominick and Mario, a father-son team 

 who, together and separately, have tanned thousands of 

 hides from all over the world. 



Dominick Villa received his early training as a tanner 

 in a commercial shop in New York where he was given 

 skunks on which to learn. He later worked on a piece- 

 work basis, rapidly shaving piles of beaver skins a day. 

 Villa came to the Museum in 1930 and prepared many of 

 the hides used in the Museum's famous habitat groups. 

 Of all the unusual skins the senior Villa prepared, one 

 particularly stands out in his memory — the harpoon-punc- 

 tured skin of a whale-shark. The pungent aroma of the 

 whale-shark moved Stanley Field to request personally that 

 Villa move the huge skin from the fourth floor taxidermy 

 shop down to the basement until his work on it was com- 

 pleted. This skin is mounted and on exhibit in Hall O. 



In 1956 Mario Villa joined the Museum staff as his 

 father's assistant and they worked together until Dominick's 

 retirement in 1961. 



Although most of the skins Mario prepares are dried and 

 shipped into the Museum from field associates, occasion- 

 ally the entire carcass of a zoo animal may be delivered to 

 the shop. After the dead animal in skinned, Mario puts 

 the skin into a crock of brine where it remains for two or 

 three days to remove the "slime." Those skins that arrive 

 dried are put into soak water, a mixture of carbolic acid and 

 water, for a few hours or a few days, depending upon the 

 size of the skin. This soaking renders the skin limp and 

 pliable. From this point on, both the dried and fresh skins 

 follow the same procedure. 



The tanner, Mario, sits before a large blade with a 

 sharply-honed edge and passes the skin over it to remove 

 the membrane. This process is known as "fleshing." The 

 larger hides are laid across a shaving beam and shaved with 

 a large two-handled knife called a currier's shaving knife. 

 Both the shaving and fleshing require a "touch" or "feel" 

 that comes only with experience. Too much pressure can 

 tear the skin or release the hairs on the opposite side, re- 

 sulting in a bald spot. Too little pressure, of course, will 

 fail to get the job done. Each different kind of animal 

 skin — fox, cheetah, or rhino — requires a different amount 

 of pressure that the tanner must determine by "feel." 



If the skin is greasy after it is fleshed, it is washed in 

 soap flakes and rinsed thoroughly. Next, the skin is pickled 

 for at least three days to make it more receptive to the 

 tanning solution. When the three days have passed the 



