Tour the North Hall of the National Museum After the First Fifty Years

The first prize of the Berlin International Fishery Exposition of 1880, which was presented by the Emperor of Germany to Prof. Spencer F. Baird, Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution and U. S. Commissioner of Fish and Fisheries, is an object of much interest and attractiveness. The prize is of silver washed with gold, on an ebony frame, with legs of silver muscle shells, and is studded with rubies and pearls. Rising from a sea-shell basin is the naked figure of a boy holding aloft a fish upon a trident. The shell is supported on one side by a male figure, with a spear poised for striking, and on the other a half-nude female who holds out one hand, which contains a mammoth pearl. The whole is exhibited in a case of polished rosewood with French plate-glass panels.

Return to start of the North Hall of the National Museum in 1886