Tomorrow Night at Observatory : "Exquisite Bodies: or the Curious and Grotesque History of the Anatomical Model" with the Wellcome's Kate Forde

Tomorrow night at Observatory, join Kate Forde--curator at the amazing Wellcome Collection in London--to learn about the rise and fall of the popular anatomical museum in 19th century Europe as detailed in The Wellcome’s recent ‘Exquisite Bodies’ exhibition. Long-time readers might recall this blog's extensive coverage of the exhibit, for which I served as curatorial adviser and designer. Images above all depict artifacts included in the exhibition.

You can find out more about the show here, here and here and see a preview of the lecture here.

Full details below; this is going to be a truly stellar event; hope to see you there!

Exquisite Bodies: or the Curious and Grotesque History of the Anatomical Model
An illustrated lecture by Wellcome Collection Curator Kate Forde
Date: Thursday, August 26
Time: 8:00 PM
Admission: $5
Presented by Morbid Anatomy

Tonight, Kate Forde of London’s Wellcome Collection will deliver an illustrated lecture detailing the rise and fall of the popular anatomical museum in 19th century Europe as detailed in The Wellcome’s recent ‘Exquisite Bodies’ exhibition.

The ‘Exquisite Bodies’ exhibition, which was curated with the assistance of Morbid Anatomy’s Joanna Ebenstein, was inspired by the craze for anatomy museums and their artifacts–particularly wax anatomical models–in 19th century Europe. In London, Paris, Brussels and Barcelona displays of wax models became popular with visitors seeking an unusual afternoon’s entertainment. The public were invited to learn about the body’s internal structure, its reproductive system and its vulnerability to disease–especially the sexually transmitted kind–through displays that combined serious science with more than a touch of prurience and horror.

At a time when scandal surrounded the practice of dissection, the medical establishment gave these collections of human surrogates a cautious welcome; yet only a few decades later they fell into disrepute, some even facing prosecution for obscenity. This talk will trace the trajectory of these museums in a highly illustrated lecture featuring many of the historical artifacts featured in the show.

To find out more about the exhibition ‘Exquisite Bodies,’ click here and here.

Kate Forde is Curator of Temporary Exhibitions at the Wellcome Collection, London. She is interested in the role of museums in the shaping of cultural memory and in the display of fine art within science-based institutions. Her current research is taking her from the great dust-heaps of Victorian London to Staten Island’s landfill Fresh Kills for an exhibition with the working title ‘Dirt’. You can see a preview of tonight's lecture by clicking here.

You can find out more about this presentation here; As mentioned above, you can find out more about the exhibition here, here and here and see a preview of the lecture here. You can get directions to Observatory--which is next door to the Morbid Anatomy Library (more on that here)--by clicking here. You can find out more about Observatory here, join our mailing list by clicking here, and join us on Facebook by clicking here.

"Still Life: The Art of Anatomy," Dunedin Public Art Gallery, Dunedin, New Zealand, Through September 12

I just found out about an excellent looking exhibition now on in Dunedin, New Zealand; the exhibition is called "Still Life: The Art of Anatomy," and it frames a variety of historical and contemporary anatomical teaching tools held in public and private hands--including models and illustrations--as artworks in a fine art setting.

Images of the exhibition above and full details below; if you are based in New Zealand, be sure to check this out!

Still Life: The Art of Anatomy
Saturday, 10 July 2010 - 12 September 2010
Dunedin Public Art Gallery
Dunedin, New Zealand

Noted Dunedin based filmmaker and medical doctor Paul Trotman, has worked closely with the Dunedin Public Art Gallery in researching Dunedin's rich collections towards the realization of Still Life: The Art of Anatomy. This exhibition brings together an array of historical and contemporary items, such as Dr John Halliday Scott's elegant anatomical drawings and old master prints, through to porcelain and wax casts of aspects of the body and the latest interactive computer generated 3D anatomical models. Still Life provides a stunning insight into this complex subject and also reveals the important lineage that science and art shares through the analysis, distillation and depiction of the human form.

You can find out more by clicking here or here.

Wax Anatomical Model of a Female Showing Internal Organs, Francesco Calenzuoli, Florence, 1818; Wellcome Collection at the Science Museum

This anatomical wax model shows the internal organs in a female torso and head, including the lungs, liver, stomach, kidneys and intestines. Complete with the veins and arteries, the heart is entirely removable. The figure was made by Francesco Calenzuoli (1796-1821), an Italian model maker renowned for his attention to detail. Wax models were used for teaching anatomy to medical students because they made it possible to pick out and emphasise specific features of the body, making their structure and function easier to understand. This made them especially useful at a time when few bodies were available for dissection. The model was donated by the Department of Human Anatomy at the University of Oxford.

Object number: 1988-249

Yet more (recent posts here: 1, 2, 3) riches from the London Science Museum's magnificently inexhaustable Brought to Life web exhibit. You can see much, much more by clicking here. Also, please click on images to see them in their full large-scale glory.

Amputation, 1864

Contributed Photograph # 1412
Name: BROWN, WILLIAM A.
Specimen # 2524 SS
Rank: PVTCompany: B
Regiment: 3
State: NY
MOS: ARTILLERY
Battle: COLD HARBOR, VA
Date of Injury: 3 JUNE 1864
Contributor: ARMSBY, JAMES H.
Photographer: WOOD & BROTHER
Studio: OVER POST OFFICE, ALBANY, NY
Comments: BOUND IN IRA HARRIS, VOL. 6.

Via the wonderful Flickr photostream of the National Museum of Health and Medicine; more here. Click on image to see larger version.

Eczema Traumatica. Self-induced by Religious Pervert...

Eczema traumatica. Self-induced by religious pervert at St. Elizabeth's Hospital, Washington D.C. Wax model. [Skin Diseases. Also Dermatology. Models and modelmaking. Made by Wallis of the Army Medical Museum.] (Reeve 000669-1)

Found--with caption!--on the astounding National Museum of Health and Medicine Flickr page. You can see more by clicking here and you can visit their wonderful blog, A Repository for Bottled Monsters, by clicking here. Click on image to see much larger version.

Thanks, Mike, for the tip!

Anatomy Class featuring Auzoux Female Anatomical Model, George Grantham Bain Collection, Shorpy

Anatomy Class circa 1905, George Grantham Bain Collection, as found on Shorpy. Click on the image to see much larger, more detailed image; note especially the demure Auzoux female anatomical model to the left; you can see a color version of it here.

More on Auzoux and his work here; Via Turn of the Century blog.

Tomorrow Night at Observatory! "Three Unique Medical Museums in Northern Italy," Lecture by Marie Dauenheimer

Just a quick reminder: tomorrow night at Observatory! Marie Dauenheimer--the curator of the "Anatomical Art: Dissection to Illustration" exhibition discussed in this recent post--will be on hand at Observatory to deliver an illustrated lecture that "will survey the collections of three unique and often over-looked anatomical museums in Northern Italy." You can read a full description here. Full event details follow; hope very much to see you there!

Three Unique Medical Museums in Northern Italy
An illustrated presentation by Marie Dauenheimer of the Vesalius Trust
Date: May 1, 2010
Time: 8:00 P.M.
Admission: $5
Presented by Morbid Anatomy

Tonight’s visual presentation by Marie Dauenheimer will survey the collections of three unique and often over-looked anatomical museums in Northern Italy which Dauenheimer toured as part of last years Vesalius Trust “Art and Anatomy Tour.” First, the University of Florence Museum of Pathological Anatomy, famous for its collection of wax pathological models created in the 19th century, including an amazing life size leper; then The Museum of Human Anatomy in Bologna featuring the work of famed wax modeling team of Anna Morandi Manzolini and her husband Giovanni Manzolini, whose life size wax models inspired Clement Susini and the wax-modeling workshop in Florence (see image above); and lastly the fascinating University of Pavia Museum of Anatomy, which houses the beautiful 18th century frescoed dissection theater, where anatomist Antonio Scarpa. So join us tonight for wine, fellowship, and a virtual and very visual tour of some of the finest and most fascinating medical museums of Italy!

Marie Dauenheimer is a Board Certified Medical Illustrator working in the Washington, DC Metropolitan area. She specializes in creating medical illustrations and animations for educational materials, including posters, brochures, books, websites and interactive media. Since 1997 Marie has organized and led numerous “Art and Anatomy Tours” throughout Europe for the Vesalius Trust. Past tours have explored anatomical museums, rare book collections and dissection theatres in Italy, The Netherlands, Belgium, France, Scotland and England. In addition to illustrating Marie teaches drawing, life drawing and human and animal anatomy at the Art Institute of Washington. Part of Marie’s anatomy class involves study and drawing from cadavers in the Anatomy Lab at Howard University College of Medicine in Washington, DC (for more on that, see this recent post).

You can find out more about this presentation here. You can get directions to Observatory--which is next door to the Morbid Anatomy Library--by clicking here. You can find out more about Observatory here, join our mailing list by clicking here, and join us on Facebook by clicking here. To learn more about Marie's "Anatomical Art: Dissection to Illustration" exhibition, click here. For more on the Vesalius Trust, click here.

Image: Self-portrait of wax modeller Anna Morandi Manzolini dissecting a human brain, Bologna, c. 1760; Via Scienza a Due Voci

"Three Unique Medical Museums in Northern Italy," Lecture by Marie Dauenheimer, Observatory, Saturday May 1

This Saturday night, Marie Dauenheimer--the curator of the "Anatomical Art: Dissection to Illustration" exhibition discussed in yesterday's post--will be on hand at Observatory to deliver an illustrated lecture that "will survey the collections of three unique and often over-looked anatomical museums in Northern Italy." One of the museums discussed will be The Museum of Human Anatomy in Bologna, which houses--among other works--an incredible wax self-portrait of Anna Morandi Manzolini dissecting a brain (c. 1760 ; see above). The other two musems she will discuss will be the fantastic and difficult-to-access University of Florence Museum of Pathological Anatomy and the University of Pavia Museum of Anatomy.

Marie--who also leads tours of medical museums for the Vesalius Trust (as discussed in this recent post)--is an excellent speaker; her lecture on Italian Wax Anatomical Models in European Collections, which she gave about a year ago, was beloved by all, and we are exceptionally pleased to be hosting her again!

Full details follow; hope very much to see you there!

Three Unique Medical Museums in Northern Italy
An illustrated presentation by Marie Dauenheimer of the Vesalius Trust
Date: May 1, 2010
Time: 8:00 P.M.
Admission: $5
Presented by Morbid Anatomy

Tonight’s visual presentation by Marie Dauenheimer will survey the collections of three unique and often over-looked anatomical museums in Northern Italy which Dauenheimer toured as part of last years Vesalius Trust “Art and Anatomy Tour.” First, the University of Florence Museum of Pathological Anatomy, famous for its collection of wax pathological models created in the 19th century, including an amazing life size leper; then The Museum of Human Anatomy in Bologna featuring the work of famed wax modeling team of Anna Morandi Manzolini and her husband Giovanni Manzolini, whose life size wax models inspired Clement Susini and the wax-modeling workshop in Florence (see image above); and lastly the fascinating University of Pavia Museum of Anatomy, which houses the beautiful 18th century frescoed dissection theater, where anatomist Antonio Scarpa. So join us tonight for wine, fellowship, and a virtual and very visual tour of some of the finest and most fascinating medical museums of Italy!

Marie Dauenheimer is a Board Certified Medical Illustrator working in the Washington, DC Metropolitan area. She specializes in creating medical illustrations and animations for educational materials, including posters, brochures, books, websites and interactive media. Since 1997 Marie has organized and led numerous “Art and Anatomy Tours” throughout Europe for the Vesalius Trust. Past tours have explored anatomical museums, rare book collections and dissection theatres in Italy, The Netherlands, Belgium, France, Scotland and England. In addition to illustrating Marie teaches drawing, life drawing and human and animal anatomy at the Art Institute of Washington. Part of Marie’s anatomy class involves study and drawing from cadavers in the Anatomy Lab at Howard University College of Medicine in Washington, DC (for more on that, see this recent post).

You can find out more about this presentation here. You can get directions to Observatory--which is next door to the Morbid Anatomy Library--by clicking here. You can find out more about Observatory here, join our mailing list by clicking here, and join us on Facebook by clicking here. To learn more about Marie's "Anatomical Art: Dissection to Illustration" exhibition, click here. For more on the Vesalius Trust, click here.

Image: Self-portrait of wax modeller Anna Morandi Manzolini dissecting a human brain, Bologna, c. 1760; Via Scienza a Due Voci

"Joanna Ebenstein's Morbid Obsession," Article, Canadian Medical Association Journal, March 2010

David McDonald of the Canadian Medical Association Journal just published an article based on a long chat we had about the seductive nature of medical collections, my photo project Anatomical Theatre (from which the above is drawn), the perilous nature of medical collections, and the larger Greater Morbid Anatomy endeavor. You can read the resulting insightful and incisive article--which will also run in the next issue of Canadian Medical Association Journal under the title "Joanna Ebenstein's Morbid Obsession"--in its entirety by clicking here.

Image: From the Anatomical Theatre exhibition "Anatomical Venuses" Life-sized Wax models with human hair in rosewood and Venetian glass cases; Workshop of Clemente Susini of Florence, 1781-1786. The Josephinum : Vienna, Austria. See full collection of images and text here.

Welcome, Jim Edmonson and Dittrick Museum, to the Blogosphere!

Friend, friend-of-Morbid-Anatomy, and co-author of the award winning book Dissection James Edmonson has recently brought his museum--the Dittrick Museum of Medical History--into the blogosphere, and in grand style. In the blog's less than 1 month existence, Jim has already managed to produce a number of interesting posts brimming with intelligence, infectious enthusiasm, and lovely images. Welcome to the blogosphere, Jim and crew! Nice to have you here.

You can check out Dittrick Museum blog by clicking here. You can visit the Dittrick Museum website by clicking here its Facebook fan by clicking here.

The top image is, I believe, a plate from master midwife Madame du Coudray’s Abrégé de l'art des accouchements [Summary of the art of childbirth] (1769). Bottom image is of an amazing late 18th century obstetric manikin recently acquired by the Dittrick. Both images are from the Dittrick blog's latest post entitled "Rare 18th century obstetric manikin comes to the Dittrick," which you can read in its entirety by clicking here.

"The Slashed Beauty," Clemente Susini, circa 1790

The beauty of a woman is only skin-deep. If men could only see what is beneath the flesh and penetrate below the surface with eyes like the Boetian lynx, they would be nauseated just to look at women, for all this feminine charm is nothing but phlegm, blood, humours, gall. Just imagine all that is hidden in nostrils, throat and stomach… We are all repelled to touch vomit and ordure even with our fingertips. How then can we ever want to embrace what is merely a sack of rottenness?
--Abbot Odo of Cluny, 10th Century, as found in Marina Warner's Phantasmagoria

Image from Anatomical Theatre Exhibition; Caption: "The Slashed Beauty," La Specola (Museo di Storia Naturale), Wax model with human hair in rosewood and Venetian Glass case; Probably modeled by Clemente Susini (around 1790), Florence, Italy;" click here to see full exhibition. Text via Jenny Hood. To find out more about Marina Warner's wonderful book Phantamagoria, click here.

The Trope of the Mysterious Floating Hands

The Trope of the Mysterious Floating Hands, as seen in a life-sized wax model of a cesarean section from the Musee Spitzner (top) and an early 20th Century Polish poster (bottom).

Image of Spitzner wax model from the book Voir-La Collection Spitzner, eds. Phillipe Blon and Stephen Bann [1998]; more images can be found here. This book and others of its ilk can be visited at The Morbid Anatomy Library, about which more can be found by clicking here. The poster, with text reading "Zabawka" or "Toy," is by Stefan Norblin from 1933. It was found on Smashing Magazine's excellent feature "The Legacy Of Polish Poster Design;" full post (with many, many more excellent images) here.

Tomorrow night! Death Themed Adult Education!

Tomorrow night I will be giving a VERY brief introduction to the world of medical museums as part of a death themed series of lectures at Brooklyn's Union Hall, curated by Adult Education. The lecture will be lavishly illustrated with photographs of medical museums front and back-stage (as seen above) that I have collected over the past 5 years, some from the Anatomical Theatre series and some from later explorations.

Hope to see you there! Full information and line-up here. More on Anatomical Theatre here.

"Morbid Anatomies and Anatomical Theatres: A Guided Tour through the World of Medical Museums," Lecture, "Adult Education," Tues. December 1

I would like to cordially invite all Morbid Anatomy readers to Adult Education's monthly lecture series at Park Slope New York's lovely Union Hall next Tuesday, December 1st. The theme for this month's installment is "Death," and I will be contributing to the evening's festivities with a heavily-illustrated lecture on the art and history of medical museums, with a special focus on the most spectacular examples of anatomical artworks and the great artists of the genre, as observed on the one-month pilgrimage to medical museums around the world I embarked upon in the development of the Anatomical Theatre exhibition.

Also featured in the evening's line-up will be Dorian Devins, Margaret Mittelbach, & Andrew Templar on the Carnivorous Nights taxidermy contest (as discussed in this recent post), Katherine Heller on "Le Petit Mort: Death as a Metaphor for Orgasm in Popular Culture and Literature" and Alex Pareene on "Homicidal Tendencies In Electronic Information Networks."

Adult Education describes itself as "a useless lecture series" and presents "brief, multimedia lectures on a shared theme" by a variety of speakers. As you can see by the full line-up below, this one is sure to be good! Hope to see you there!

ADULT EDUCATION PRESENTS:
"Death"
Tuesday, December 1, 2009 - 8 pm (doors at 7:30)
Union Hall in Park Slope, New York
702 Union St. @ 5th Ave
$5 cover

DORIAN DEVINS, MARGARET MITTELBACH, & ANDREW TEMPLAR
"Death and Taxidermy: The Ape That Launched 1000 Quips"
Devins, Mittelbach, and Templar discuss observations gleaned from four years of Carnivorous Nights, an annual taxidermy contest held in Brooklyn.

ALEX PAREENE
"Everyone Is Trying To Kill You: Analyzing Homicidal Tendencies In Electronic Information Networks"
The most dangerous people in America today are celebrities. And Arianna Huffington is letting them blog. Alex Pareene assesses recent threats to our national health from Suzanne Somers and Canada.

KATHARINE HELLER
"Le Petit Mort: Death as a Metaphor for Orgasm in Popular Culture and Literature"
Heller looks at the various ways in which death, much like everything else, is tied to sex.

JOANNA EBENSTEIN
"Morbid Anatomies and Anatomical Theatres: A Guided Tour through the World of Medical Museums"
What is the difference between a wet and a dry specimen? Why did people make life-sized, recumbent wax women whose insides could be taken apart into dozens of pieces? Where did Gunther von Hagens (Body Worlds exhibit) get his schtick? Joanna Ebenstein presents a virtual tour of great medical museums of the western world.

Hosted, as always, by the inimitable Charles Star

* * * *

BIOS

DORIAN DEVINS and MARGARET MITTELBACH are cofounders of Secret Science Club, a monthly lecture series at the Bell House in Brooklyn. Devins is a radio producer and host of WFMU, 91.1 FM's "The Speakeasy," a weekly arts and cultural interview program. Mittelbach is co-author, with ANDREW TEMPLAR, of Carnivorous Nights: On the Trail of the Tasmanian Tiger and author of Wild New York: A Guide to the Wildlife, Wild Places and Natural Phenomena of New York City. Templar is co-owner of Union Hall, the Bell House, Floyd, and the mysterious 'rump ape.'

JOANNA EBENSTEIN is a Brooklyn based artist. She runs the Morbid Anatomy blog and the Morbid Anatomy Library. She is also the founding member of Observatory, a collaborative Gowanus-based exhibition/presentation space where she presents lectures on a variety of morbid topics. Her recent exhibition, Anatomical Theatre, is a photo survey of great medical museums of the western world.

KATHARINE HELLER is a writer, actress and comedian. Most recently, she wrote and produced an award-winning show at the New York International Fringe Festival, The Boy in the Basement. Heller has been a regular theater and nightlife reviewer for the online magazine New York Cool and is working on her first one-woman show, My Dad's Crazier Than Your Dad.

ALEX PAREENE writes about politics for Gawker and is author of the blog Everyone Is Trying To Kill You. Formerly, he was Editor of Washington DC gossip website Wonkette.com. His writing has appeared on many famous and popular internet sites, on the World Wide Web. He is not a doctor and, in fact, did not even finish attaining a BFA.

CHARLES STAR (HOST) is a lawyer sans portfolio and a stand-up comedian sans recognition who lives in Brooklyn with his excellent wife, his awesome cat, and a budding baby genius. He's on the web at charlesstar.com.

Full information about the event and more about the Adult Education series can be found by clicking here. You can find out more about the venue, including directions, by clicking here.

The image you see above is drawn from the "Anatomical Theatre" exhibition; click here to view the full exhibition. The model pictured is called "The Slashed Beauty" and is a life-sized wax anatomical model with human hair which reclines on a silk cushion in a rosewood and Venetian Glass case; she was probably modeled by Clemente Susini around 1790 and is housed at "La Specola” (Museo di Storia Naturale) in Florence, Italy. You will hear the story behind this model and many others of equally spectacular nature in my lecture next Tuesday.

Papier-Mâché Anatomist Louis Thomas Jérôme Auzoux's Epic Atelier

Of all the anatomical modelers I know, Dr. Louis Thomas Jérôme Auzoux is one of my least favorites, due to his medium of choice being not the uncanny and fine wax of his precursors but prosaic and utilitarian Papier-Mâché. That said, I really do love this photo of Auzoux's atelier, which one of the presenters at the Auzoux conference at the Boerhaave Museum last year included in their lecture. I was finally able to find a copy online as of this morning; The caption reads "Etablissement du Dr Auzoux - Modèles fabriqués dans les ateliers de Saint-Aubin-d'Ecrosville (Eure)." Hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

More on Auzoux and his work can be found on this recent Morbid Anatomy post. Click the image--found it on Arehn's Picassa gallery--to see much larger, more detailed image.

Zoe Leonard on the Uncanny Allure of Wax Anatomical Models

“I first saw a picture of the anatomical wax model of a woman with pearls in a guidebook on Vienna. She struck a chord in me. I couldn’t stop thinking about her. She seemed to contain all I wanted to say at that moment, about feeling gutted, displayed. Caught as an object of desire and horror at the same time. She also seemed relevant to me in terms of medical history, a gaping example of sexism in medicine. The perversity of those pearls, that long blond hair. I went on with this work even though it is gory and depressing because the images seem to reveal so much.”--Zoe Leonard, Journal of Contemporary Art

You can read the whole article--which investigates the use and meaning of wax anatomical models in the work of contemporary artist Zoe Leonard--by clicking here.

Images from original post; Top: "Anatomical Model of a Woman’s Head Crying", 1993 , © Zoe Leonard; Bottom: "Wax Anatomical Model (Shot Crooked from Above)", 1990, © Zoe Leonard

The "Anatomical Machines" of the Prince of Sansevero, 1763-64

I just stumbled upon an article about the enigmatic "Anatomical Machines" of the Prince of Sansevero. These artifacts, constructed in 1763-64 by Dr. Giuseppe Salerno of Palermo, still reside in their glass cases in the "Underground Chamber" of the Museo Sansevero, and were quite sensational in their time, when popular imagination held that the Prince--in his ardor for rational, materialist science--had commanded that two of his servants be killed and virtuosically embalmed. His goal in this dark deed? To create a sort of anatomical Adam and Eve, who would--from pedestals on high and forevermore--elegantly and accurately illustrate the skeletal structure, viscera, arterial system, and vein systems of the human form. Though not the most beautiful things in the world (see above) it is said their accuracy is astounding, down to the smallest detail. More, from the webpage of the Sansevero Chapel Museum (Museo Sansevero):

In the Underground Chamber, housed in two glass cases, are the famous Anatomical Machines, i.e. the skeletons of a man and of a woman in upright position, with the artery and vein systems almost perfectly intact. The Machines were made by the doctor Giuseppe Salerno of Palermo, under the direction of Raimondo di Sangro. The discovery of notaries’ deeds and credit notes makes it possible to date these “works” to 1763-64. The two anatomical studies are the most enigmatic objects in the Sansevero Chapel...

These disquieting objects were kept in a room in the palace of the Prince of Sansevero, called “the Apartment of the Phoenix”, as a number of travellers and the Short note attest. This source describes the Machines in detail, from the blood vessels of the head to those of the tongue, and adds that at the feet of the women was placed “the tiny body of a foetus”, alongside which there was even the open placenta, connected to the foetus by umbilical cord. The two anatomical studies were moved to the Chapel, and in this way saved from destruction or loss, long after the death of the Prince. The remains of the foetus were still visible up to a few decades ago, until they were stolen.

The Anatomical Machines have fuelled the so-called “black legend” about the Prince of Sansevero. Also Benedetto Croce recounts that, according to popular belief, Raimondo di Sangro “had two of his servants killed, a man and a women, and had the bodies strangely embalmed so that they showed all the viscera, the arteries and the veins”...

From what I understand, contemporary research suggests that the "black legend" incriminating the Prince of Sansevero in erroneous, that these machines are, in fact, composed of artificial material, save for the skeletons that serve as the base; for more on this research, see the article "The Anatomical Machines of the Prince of Sansevero" which describes an ongoing project conducted by Lucia Dacome (who presented on this topic at a recent conference I attended) and Renata Peters by clicking here. For more about the "Machines," and to read in full the text from which the above excerpt is drawn, click here. All images from the Nautilus Antiques and Oddities Shop write-up of the museum; click here to find out more.

"Aphrodites of the Operating Theatre" Mark Dery on La Specola, et al.

Mark Dery's guest blogging stint on Boing Boing continues to excite and enlighten. His latest post, entitled "Aphrodities of the Operating Theatre" and dealing specifically with the awe-inspiring La Specola anatomical wax collection of Florence begins:

Why have we not developed an aesthetic of the inside of the body?," wonders one of the twin gynecologists in David Cronenberg's Dead Ringers. He speaks for Cronenberg, who took up the thread in an interview he and I conducted. "We have contests in which we decide who is the most beautiful woman in the world," said Cronenberg, "and yet, if you were to show the inside of that woman's body, you would have a lot of grossed-out people. Why is that? We should be able to have a World's Most Perfect Kidney contest, where women or men unzip to show their kidneys. We can't become integral creatures until we come to terms with our bodies and we haven't come remotely close to that. We're incredibly schizophrenic."

Cronenberg's visceral aesthetic is bodied forth (so to speak) in La Specola, an 18th century anatomical museum at the University of Florence. It's fitting that the name, from the Latin for mirror (the museum is housed in a former observatory), is close etymological kin to speculum, an instrument used, as every woman knows, to dilate the opening of a body cavity for examination. La Specola is home to a collection of visible women and men, medical teaching aids that comprise some of the finest examples of ceroplasty, the art of modeling anatomical specimens in wax...

Check out the whole post by clicking here.

Image: From the series Anatomical Theatre: “La Specola” (Museo di Storia Naturale) : Florence, Italy "Anatomical Venus"; Wax wodel with human hair and pearls in rosewood and Venetian glass case; Probably modeled by Clemente Susini (around 1790)

"Exqusite Bodies" Press

The preview for the exhibit "Exquisite Bodies" at the Wellcome Collection last night was fantastic. So is the onslaught of press to greet my slightly hung-over self this morning. Here are 2 of my favorites thus far: the audio slide-show featuring narration by curator Kate Forde on the BBC website (click here) and the review in The Londonist which ends with the line "Gruesomely glorious stuff and a must-see for anyone without syphilis" (click here.) Check 'em out! Not quite as good as seeing the exhibition in person (more about that here), but a good start.

Tomorrow is the Opening Night of "Exquisite Bodies" at the Wellcome Collection!

I got a sneak peak of the Wellcome Collection's upcoming "Exquisite Bodies" exhibition yesterday and can assure you that it is indeed quite marvelous! The preview of the show is tomorrow evening; it will be open to the public beginning the following day, Thursday July 30th.

To get a sense of just how marvelous this exhibition is, check out the article "Graphic and Ghoulish: The Wellcome's Cadaverous Exquisite Bodies Show"--which describes the exhibition as "Part fairground attraction, part science lesson"-- and the accompanying photo gallery featured in today's Guardian. The images you see above--drawn from this gallery--are just the tip of the iceberg of what you'll find there! And, of course, if you can, you absolutely must see this exhibition in person. Even these wonderful photos fail to do justice to the artifacts and the experience of viewing them in the lush Victorian parlour-inspired Wellcome installation.

Click here to see the article, here to see the photo gallery (from which I've drawn these images), and here to find out more about the exhibition.