The Crystal Palace Dinosaurs, also known as Dinosaur Court, are a series of sculptures of dinosaurs and extinct mammals located in Crystal Palace, London. Commissioned in 1852 and unveiled in 1854, they were the first dinosaur sculptures in the world, pre-dating the publication of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species by six years. Designed and sculpted by Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins with the help of Richard Owen, they were Grade II listed buildings from 1973, extensively restored in 2002 and upgraded to Grade I listed in 2007.
The models themselves are now considered out of date and to varying degrees inaccurate.
Read more about Crystal Palace Dinosaurs: History, The Sculptures, In Literature and Popular Culture
Famous quotes containing the words crystal and/or palace:
“The crystal sphere of thought is as concentrical as the geological structure of the globe. As our soils and rocks lie in strata, concentric strata, so do all men’s thinkings run laterally, never vertically.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“It takes a heap o’ children to make a home that’s true,
And home can be a palace grand, or just a plain, old shoe;
But if it has a mother dear, and a good old dad or two,
Why, that’s the sort of good old home for good old me and you.”
—Louis Untermeyer (1885–1977)