I found this wonderful ivory anatomical manikin imagination on the blog of the Special Collections, Archives, and Rare Books at the University of Missouri Libraries via the wonderful Tumblr account of Paula A. Ruiz, who kindly answered my recent call for imagery related to the Anatomical Venus.
More on the piece, sourced from the blog, below; you can read the whole piece, and see more images, by clicking here.
... This object is an ivory anatomical manikin that belongs to the collection of the J. Otto Lottes Health Sciences Library here at the University of Missouri. It is probably German, dates from the eighteenth century, and is about 11 inches long...
Ivory manikins such as this one may have been used as educational tools by male doctors. It’s not clear who was the intended audience for the objects. Were they used to demonstrate basic anatomy to medical students? Or laypeople? Or were they simply luxury objects, curiosities to be kept in a doctor’s study?
Most of the ivory anatomical manikins still extant today are pregnant females. The artist of this figure even connected the fetus to the womb with a small piece of thread to represent the umbilical cord. Whether or not the imagination was something the original owner of this figure considered, we do not know.
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