The field of zoology has long supplied the arts and crafts sector with a plethora of sundry materials. The numerous antlers and horns are to be mentioned primarily in this context, which do not merely fill all of the hunting lodges and other houses belonging to keen huntsmen but are also to be encountered in the homes of people who have never held a rifle, and at best know how to carve a haunch of venison with the necessary respect.
Gustav Pazaurek: Guter und Schlechter Geschmack im Kunstgewerbe, Stuttgart/Berlin 1912, pp. 30f

Hunting trophies are a deep-rooted element of human culture; from ancient times, they served prestige purposes, demonstrating the hunter’s triumph over the game animal. The use of animal trophies in furnituremaking, however, is a comparatively recent phenomenon. Aside from later-medieval antler chandeliers, the so-called lusterweibchens, which frequently carried a mythological or allegorical meaning, and a couple of singular curiosity pieces from aristocratic cabinets of art and curiosities and the like, trophy furniture came into wider use only with the 19th century antler-furniture vogue. For the hunting rooms of the Alpine region, staghorn furniture made from antlers was extremely popular. Catering to the growing taste for exotic decorative pieces, variants of bovine or antelope horn in colonial style were increasingly offered around the turn of the century.

One exceptional and singular piece is three designers’ famous chaise longue, formerly in the possession of the Maharaja of Indore, which has a leopard-skin covering—the rationalist-technological tubular-steel frame of the lounger is contrasted her with the epitome of exotic wildlife. Until today, different types of animal skin have been used in similar ways again and again to upgrade special seating furniture—or even the familiar mass-produced chair—and to give it a touch of luxury, exoticism or erotic appeal.

For some time now, antler furniture has come into vogue again. While, in the mid-20th century, it was, at the most, appreciated by Surrealists as the scurrilous excesses of a rustic sense of hominess, and in the New German Design of the 1980s even came to be used as a sarcastic homage to the quintessential petty-bourgeois symbol of the “belling stag” over the sofa, they have now for some time been all the rage in furniture catalogues and fashion magazines showcasing them with labels like “neo-Alpine” or “retro-chic”. Fur furniture also seems to be compatible with the current country-house or vernacular style; depending on the type of fur, they provide the interior with a trendy Western-style or safari look. However, new and recent objects of horn, antler, fur and animal skin by designers and artists such Jerszy Seymour, Micha Brendel, and Helmut Palla tend to undercut the atmospheric value of this trophy furniture, taking their hominess to the point of absurdity.