Didus Ineptus

Mounted pin-brooch, 2007 aterials: 20ct gold, diamond, engraved lapis-lazuli mosaic, mother-of-pearl, opal, silver, 18ct white gold pin

...So good, he named it twice. In 1758, the great Linnaeus first called this remarkable bird (by then already a century into extinction) Raphus cucullatus. Eight years later he had a change of mind and came up with the biographically more appropriate Didus ineptus. Unfortunately, however, by applying his own severe rules, it is the first naming which remains the official one, leaving a taxonomic confusion which only serves to reinforce the already comic aspects of this poor creature’s being. The Dodo has, in a sense, had two existences, two careers: first its real life, lived without threat or predation on its island paradise until the European arrival of men, dogs, cats and rats introduced predatory chaos – and within thirty or forty years the Dodo was as Dead as, well, a Dodo. It is from that time that its second – posthumous – and far more distinguished career began, as celebrity icon of extinction and heroic fool of failure – the ineptus of Linnaeus’s throwaway second thought, in effect, anticipating some of Darwin’s own ideas of almost a century later.

height (without pin): 37mm width: 29mm ount: mixed media Signed and dated artist’s no: 412.MP-B.07 hidden alche y: 211

The fascination with ‘omni vivum ex ovo’ has led me to enclose the eternally endearing ‘Didus ineptus’ and its egg within my 3:4 geometrical construction of a rule-andcompass ovoid form – a projection, at least, which does promise infinite growth.