Froggyland

About this audio guide

This guide to Froggyland in Split follows Ferenc Mere, a Hungarian taxidermist born in 1878 who grew up beside a pond and spent roughly a decade turning that childhood fascination into an obsession. Starting around 1910 he began catching common frogs from marshes near his home, mounting each one through the mouth so no incision shows, and posing them at anvils, sewing machines and school desks until he had built twenty-one scenes of ordinary human life. You'll hear how the collection then vanished from view for years before a Croatian family carried it to Split. Look closely at the poses in each case, and you're looking at one man's decade of work, unchanged since he set it.