There is something quietly devastating about a small skeleton. Mice and rats — creatures we overlook in life — become something else entirely when preserved and placed behind glass. Fragile, precise, undeniably beautiful. In the world of dark art and gothic decor, they occupy a very particular niche: intimate memento mori, small enough to hold in your palm, heavy enough to make you think.
I work with preserved mouse and rat skeletons to create shadowboxes and reliquaries that honour these overlooked creatures. Each piece is assembled by hand — bone by bone, with patience and intention.
On Assembling Skeletons
Working with small mammal skeletons is a study in precision. Mouse and rat bones are extraordinarily delicate — the ribs no thicker than a thread, the skull smaller than a thumbnail. Every skeleton is cleaned and assembled individually, positioned to tell a story rather than simply to exist.
The result is never clinical. These are not specimens in a laboratory sense — they are characters. Each one has a posture, a presence, a suggestion of personality that emerges through the way the bones are arranged and the world built around them.
Mouse Skeletons
Mice are the smallest creatures I work with, and perhaps the most affecting. Their skeletons are impossibly fine — a complete architecture in miniature. I place them in worlds built to match their scale: glass domes layered with moss, lichen and dried botanicals; hinged coffins lined with velvet and lace, ornamented with tiny skulls and mummified curiosities; framed shadowboxes dense with forest elements, minerals and hand-cast details. Every composition is rich with texture — the kind you want to lean in close to read, layer by layer.
A mouse skeleton in a glass dome becomes something almost sacred — a reliquary for the overlooked. In a velvet-lined coffin, it becomes theatre: gothic, tender, a little absurd in the best possible way. The format changes the story, but the creature at the centre always remains the point.
Rat Skeletons
Rats are larger, more commanding — their skulls more defined, their presence more immediate behind glass. Where a mouse skeleton whispers, a rat skeleton speaks. They lend themselves to more elaborate compositions: open gothic displays with hand-cast elements; cabinet-style frames layered with horns, wings, glass vials and forest curiosities; scenes that feel like they belong in a Victorian cabinet of wonders or a witch’s private collection.
The richness of detail in these pieces is deliberate. A rat skeleton alone is striking — but surrounded by hand-carved horns, real wings, snake skin, tarantula molt, deer teeth and crystals, it becomes something mythological. Something that feels like it was always meant to exist behind glass, in a frame, on a wall. The formats I use — deep shadow frames, open birch wood bases, glass-fronted cabinets — are chosen to give each creature the space and context it deserves.
Memento Vivere
I keep beautiful things from the dead because they remind me to live. A mouse skeleton behind glass is not a morbid curiosity — it is a meditation. On smallness. On fragility. On the fact that even the most overlooked creature leaves behind something worth preserving.
Each piece I make is assembled by hand, one at a time, with care for the creature and for the person who will eventually live with it. If you are drawn to the quiet beauty of preserved specimens, you are in the right place.