RIP Bill Jamieson

Much has been said about the sad and sudden passing of epic collector and friend to many (including myself!) Billy Jamieson. I am not sure I have anything to add to this often eloquent outpouring of disbelief and grief, except to add note of my own sadness, and to take this moment to mark his passing.

James Taylor put it best, perhaps, on his website "Shocked and Amazed":

Hearing of Bill Jamieson’s death yesterday was about as shocking an occurrence as can be imagined in this business. Still a young man, truly, and a man whose importance to collecting and “spreading the word” had yet to be fully felt, his passing leaves a hole at least 10X larger in the business than the enormous hoard of attractions he leaves behind...

My own experience with Billy was marked by kindness, generosity of spirit, and a sharp and roving intelligence. He loaned us a variety of artifacts from The Niagara Falls Museum--a circa 1827 dime museum whose entire contents he had purchased in 1999--for use in The Coney Island Spectacularium. He also joined us at Coney Island a few weeks back, where we enjoyed the pleasure of his company on the judges stand of The Mermaid Parade followed by a memorable and inspiring lecture in the museum.

I still cannot quite believe he is really dead. He was one of the most full-of-life and inspiring men it has ever been my pleasure to meet.

Rest in peace, Billy. You are--and will continue to be--sorely missed.

Photo sourced from Colorslab.

"The Wunderkammer," Installation by Georg Laue, Me Collectors Room, Berlin

I just came across a rather interesting looking new exhibition at a gallery called the Me Collectors Room in Berlin. Entitled "The Wunderkammer," this new permanent installation is the work of antique dealer/cabinetist Georg Laue, proprietor of the famed Kunstkammer Georg Laue in Munich, Germany, and seems--as you can see in the images above--to include a pretty astounding collection of fine memento mori, ivory Anatomical Venuses, and turned ivory wonders.

From the website:

THE WUNDERKAMMER

ASTONISHMENT
The WUNDERKAMMER rekindles the tradition of the Kunst- and Wunderkammer of the Renaissance and Baroque periods. It imparts an insight into the world view and the standard of knowledge of past centuries and does just what a Wunderkammer was able to do between 200 and 500 years ago: transport the visitor into a realm of sheer astonishment — whether by means of the legendary unicorn, exposed latterly by the cognoscenti as the tusk of a narwhal, an amber mirror flooded with light, or cabinets that only reveal their mysteries to the observant viewer.

DISCOVERY
The quality of the exhibits, numbering in excess of 150, is unique and makes the WUNDERKAMMER one of the most significant private collections of its kind. The juxtaposition of works from different cultures generates its very own effect. The permanent collection places an emphasis on Vanitas (“Consider the fact that you will die”). In the Baroque period, death was already staged with a mixture of devotion, interest, and humour. The scope for interpretation of this topic is manifested by an anatomical model dating from the second half of the 17th century. The organs and the foetus of the laid out body of a pregnant woman can be removed and prompt one to indulge in a playful handling of this miniature.

UNDERSTANDING
The objects in the WUNDERKAMMER exert an incredible fascination and will captivate the curious with a vision of a small, encyclopaedic, unique universe, which ultimately contributing to a deeper understanding of the correlations between art, nature, and science.

This exhibition definitely looks worth a visit! And, for the more curious among you, theme-specific tours of the collection are also available in which, as the website explains, "existential themes such as Eros, death, and transience, as well as the genesis of the collection, form the central focus."

You can find out more about Georg Laue and his Munich shop clicking here. You can find out about more about the exhibit by clicking here.

Found via Wunderkammer. All images from the Me Collectors Room Berlin website.

Morbid Anatomy Library New Arrival: "The Dead," Jack Burman, 2010

He shoots in concentration camps, sterile medical laboratories, crumbling archives, curious private collections. He notes that about 90% of his work is done in the Catholic world, places “richly fixated on the body of Mary, the body of Christ, the bodies of the martyrs” and with a “history of sensually violent and death-riddled art.” It’s a tradition that doesn’t exist in North America, and his book serves as a reminder of “everything we left; everything that made us, and somehow drove us to undo that and make ourselves over.--"Jack Burman: Book of the Dead," The Canadian National Post

Canadian photographer Jack Burman's new book--titled, simply, The Dead--is a breathtaking book. Gorgeously produced and sober, this quiet and lovely book is filled with Burman's large-scale photographs exploring the topic of death via a meditative documentation of a variety of human remains. Many of the 52 images which make up this book picture artifacts--from specimens to mummies to medical preparations--that will be familiar to aficionados of medical museums and ossuaries, but the quiet restraint and rich detail Burman achieves in his classically composed images elevate the book above the usual fare.

The book is published by The Magenta Foundation; you can find out more about it--and purchase the book in one of its three editions--by clicking here. You can also come pay the book a visit in the Morbid Anatomy Library where my copy resides atop the New Arrivals pile. You can read more about the book in the recent Canadian National Post article quoted above by clicking here.

Vanitas, 18th Century

Via Wunderkammer.

"Vanitas" Virtual Memento Mori for your Iphone

VANITAS. from Tale of Tales on Vimeo.

iPhone developers Tale of Tales recently released Vanitas, an intriguingly unique app they describe as “a memento mori for your digital hands.” Named after a style of still life paintings from the 16th and 17th century that feature symbols of death and impermanence, Vanitas is designed to invite contemplation on mortality.
--Laughing Squid, "Vanitas – A Digital Memento Mori For The iPhone"

Wow! What a truly surprising and delightful direction for game and interactive design! A bit digital looking to my taste, but I love the sentiment, and the serious attempt to revive the memento mori tradition for the digital age. I will be quite curious to see what kind of popularity such a product can achieve...

From the website:

VANITAS. A memento mori for your digital hands.
To lift you up when you're feeling down. And drag you down when you're up too high.

Everything flows, nothing remains.
Vanity of vanities, all is vanity!
Life is the farce we are all forced to endure.

Sometimes, when you're depressed, it's good to see something depressing.
A contemplation of the fleetingness of life. To help appreciate what you have.
A meditative experience. A spiritual toy. A reminder of the preciousness of life.

Referring to still life paintings from the 16th and 17th century, Vanitas presents you with a gorgeously rendered 3D box filled with intriguing objects. Close the box and open it again to see new objects. You can move the objects by tilting your iPhone or pushing and dragging the objects with your fingers. To create pleasant arrangements that inspire and enchant. Some objects decay. A flower blooms. A bubble pops. Life like an empty dream flits by...

Designed by Auriea Harvey & Michael Samyn. With cello music by Zoe Keating.

Made at the occasion of The Art History of Games symposium in February 2010 in Atlanta.

To see more, watch the application trailer above. You can find out more here, and can purchase the app--only $0.99!--by clicking here. Via Laughing Squid; click here to view the orignal post, which provides much more information.

Image: Vanitas Still Life (1650) by Aelbert Janszm, via Museumblogs.

"The Ossuary," Jan Švankmajer, 1970

To continue on the theme of bone chapels begun in my last post, thanks so much to Morbid Anatomy reader and commentator Mirloniger for pointing me in the direction of Jan Švankmajer--muse to the Brothers Quay--and his short film "Kostnice" (The Ossuary), devoted to the wonders of the Sedlec Ossuary in Kutná Hora, a truly epic bone chapel located in an ancient town near Prague in the Czech Republic. This film was commissioned in 1970 to celebrate the work of František Rint--the man responsible for the bone compositions that fill the chapel--on the centenary of the completion of his osteo-masterwork in 1870.

Kinoeye: New Perspectives on European Film describes the film thusly:

One of the neglected masterpieces produced during Švankmajer's early career is Kostnice (The Ossuary, 1970), a "horror documentary" shot in one of his country's most unique and bleakest monuments, the Sedlec Monastery Ossuary. The Sedlec Ossuary contains the bones of some 50 to 70 thousand people buried there since the Middle Ages. Over a period of a decade, they were fashioned by the Czech artist František Rint with his wife and two children into fascinating displays of shapes and objects, including skull pyramids, crosses, a monstrance and a chandelier containing every bone of the human body. Their work was completed in 1870, and these artifacts have been placed in the crypt of the Cistercian chapel as a memento mori for the contemplation of visitors.

You can watch the entire film above, or by clicking here. Click here to buy a copy of it from the Morbid Anatomy Bookstore. To see previous post on osteo-architecture, click here. To see a previous post on the art of the Brothers Quay, click here. More on the Sedlec Ossuary in Kutná Hora can be found by clicking here. Thanks, Mirloniger, for sending this along!

Caterina de Julianis (1695-1742), Student of Gaetano Giulio Zumbo (1656-1701)

I have just made the happy discovery of the work of Caterina de Julianis (1695-1742), Neapolitan nun, master waxworker, and student of the Sicilian Abbot cum master waxworker Gaetano Giulio Zumbo (1656-1701). Zumbo was infamous in his time for his miniature allegorical waxworks depicting humans in the throes of death, disease, and decomposition; these artworks were found revolting by most, but beloved by a few, among them the Marquis de Sade. Zumbo is also famously known as the grandfather of the wax anatomical modeling tradition, as discussed in this recent blog post.

Julianis' work is so similar to that of her master--featuring waxwork miniatures, memento mori imagery and themes, and masterfully rendered macabre images of death and disease--that her work is often wrongly attributed to the better-known Zumbo; sometimes true ownership cannot be determined. Case in point: the top image is attributed on Victoria and Albert Museum website to both Julianis and Zumbo. The bottom image, from the same source, is entitled "Time and Death" and is attributed soley to Julianis, with a mention that it was, until recently, attributed to Zumbo. The full caption reads:

Time and Death, before 1727
Relief, Italy (probably Naples, made), Coloured and moulded wax
Purchased by the V&A under the bequest of Dr W.L. Hildburgh

The scene is set in a crumbling graveyard, with the winged figure of Father Time seated on the left pointing to a clock, while a half-draped emaciated figure of a smiling beggar, seated on the other side of the clock, solicits alms; a papal tiara lies at his feet. One small discoloured and decaying corpse lies in front of Time, while another corpse with entrails revealed lies beside him, surrounded by rats, snakes and skulls. A dead youth is stretched out on the right, while on the extreme right the crowned skeletal figure of Death holding a spear looks on. Ivy trails over the surrounding stonework; the sloping ground gives a sense of theatricality to the whole. The painted background depicts decaying funerary monuments.

This highly realistic and dramatic wax tableau was a memento mori, intended to inspire thoughts on mortality. Until recently it was attributed to the wax sculptor Gaetano Giulio Zumbo or Zummo (1656-1701), but it has now been convincingly reassigned to Caterina de Julianis. This artist was a Neapolitan nun who specialized in wax modelling. The piece was inspired by Zumbo's works, and the dead youth was in fact based on a figure of a dead bare-breasted woman in one of his wax compositions; because the present work was intended for a church this figure was transformed into a male subject. Coloured wax was the ideal medium for such morbidly realistic scenes, and the artist has been able to convey with astonishing illusionism the textures of stone, flesh and drapery. Wax figures could be formed from moulds, as well as modelled, and so copies and variations of compositions were easily made. A closely similar composition known to be by Caterina de Julianis is in the Chiesa dell'Immacolata in Catanzaro, previously in Bishop Emmanuel Spinelli's palace, and dating from before 1727.

It appears that one or both of these reliefs were featured in a recent exhibition at the V and A entitled "Baroque 1620-1800: Style in the Age of Magnificence." You can visit the online exhibition by clicking here; you can order a copy of the catalog (as I just did!) by clicking here. Both images from the V and A website; more on both objects here; click on images to see larger, finer image.

Addendum:
If the work of Zumbo is of interest, it has just come to my attention that one of Zumbo's recently restored artworks--described as "a gruesome scene showing a group of decomposing syphilis victims" (see below)

is on view for a limited time (until January 31st) at Florence's Museo dell'Opificio. For more on the piece and the exhibition, click here. And if these sorts of models hold some interest for you, you might also want to check out Daniel Neuberger's "Allegory on the Death of the Emperor Ferdinand" of 1657, which can be seen at the Ecclesiastical Treasury in Vienna and was featured in a recent MA post; click here to see it and find out more.

Announcing a New Virtual Museum Dedicated to Frederik Ruysch (1638-1731): Anatomical Artist, Museologist, Morbid Anatomy Patron Saint!

There are many great artists of medical preparations, but perhaps my very favorite, and probably the most bizarre and fascinating to the modern eye, is Dutch anatomist, artist, preparator, and early museologist Frederik Ruysch. I have just been alerted to the launch of a new virtual museum dedicated to the life, art and history of this great anatomical artist. Following is a brief introduction to Ruysch's life and work; if you find this of interest, I urge you to visit this new virtual museum, which promises--once the English version becomes operative--to become a definitive resource for all things Ruysch.

Frederik Ruysch (1638-1731) (pictured above, top, dissecting a child) was a true artist of human remains, his works being referred to in his time as "‘Rembrandts of anatomical preparation'" [1]. A high-ranking doctor in Amsterdam, Ruysch was famed far and wide for his uncannily life-like and imaginative preparations, and he used his access as "chief instructor of midwives and 'legal doctor' to the court" [2] to legally obtain scores of cadavers with which to create memorable preparations, including fanciful allegorical tableaux composed of fetal skeletons and other human body parts (as seen above, 2, 3 and 4). As Steven Jay Gould explains in the book Finders, Keepers: Eight Collectors, his excellent collaboration with photographer Rosamond Purcell:

Ruysch made about a dozen tableaux, constructed of human fetal skeletons with backgrounds of other body parts, on allegorical themes of death and the transiency of life...Ruysch built the 'geological' landscapes of these tableaux from gallstones and kidneystones, and 'botanical' backgrounds from injected and hardened major veins and arteries for "trees," and more ramified tissue of lungs and smaller vessels for 'bushes' and 'grass.'

The fetal skeletons, several per tableau, were ornamented with symbols of death and short life--hands may hold mayflies (which live but a day in their adult state); skulls bemoan their fate by weeping into 'handkerchiefs' made of elegantly injected mesentery or brain meninges; 'snakes' and 'worms,' symbols of corruption made of intestine, wind around pelvis and rib cage.

Quotations and moral exhortations, emphasizing the brevity of life and the vanity of earthly riches, festooned the compositions. One fetal skeleton holding a string of pearls in its hand proclaims, 'Why should I long for the things of this world?' Another, playing a violin with a bow made of a dried artery, sings, 'Ah fate, ah bitter fate.' [3]

In addition to the spectacular memento mori-themed tableaux detailed above, Ruysch was also renowned for his incredibly life-like and enticingly imaginative wet preparations (above, 9, 10 and 11). To create these extraordinary specimens, Ruysch--using self-developed secret techniques--injected specimens with wax impregnated with pigment and other additives to solve the color-loss issues endemic to wet specimens. With the help of his daughter--still-life artist Rachel Ruysch--he would adorn these specimens with lace and clothing (sometimes even turbans! See 10 down) to hide "unfinished" areas (ie. cuts in the flesh, dissection marks) and add a note of delicacy, grace, and elegance to the whole; he would also often replace native eyes with eyes of glass to complete the illusion of life. The finished work would be immersed in his secret formula of spirits, black pepper, and other additives in a suitable presentation jar, with embellishments sometimes added atop the final piece (see 8 down). The results, as seen in the specimens above, were startlingly lifelike, and still--after many centuries!- have an uncanny, rosy beauty very unlike the dull and pallid specimens seen so often at medical museums.

Rusych was a collector and showman as well as artist and anatomist; to showcase his vast--he produced over 2,000 human preparations in the years 1665-1717 alone! [4] --and "spectacular collections of 'Anatomical Treasures'," [5] Rusych established his own cabinet of curiosities, a private museum visited by medics and philosophers, as well as members of the aristocracy and royalty. Here, one could see not only his fantastic tableaux, but also "body part specimens in glass jars, baby skeletons, and preserved organs ... alongside exotic birds, butterflies and plants." [6] Ruysch published several lavishly illustrated guides to his incredible cabinet; 8th down, you can see an allegorical view of his museum as depicted in a frontispiece to one of these guides, Thesaurus animalium primus = Het eerste cabinet der dieren, published in 1710.

One visitor to the museum--and one of Ruysch's greatest admirers during his lifetime--was Czar Peter the Great of Russia, who in 1717 purchased the entire cabinet of Dr. Ruysch for 30,000 Dutch guilders, an astronomical fee at the time [7]. He had the entire collection shipped over to St. Petersburg--along with the collection of Amsterdam-based collector and scientist Albertus Seba-- to form the basis for the Academy of Sciences of Russia's first public museum, the Kunstkammer. [8]

Very sadly, none of Ruysch's astonishing tableaux are known to exist any longer, and are only known to us via illustrations from books of the time. Many of Ruysch's wet preparations, however, can still be viewed in collections such as the St. Petersburg Kunstkammer (which has 916 of them), Museum Bleulandinum in Utrecht, and the Anatomisch Museum LUMC in Leiden.

For people interested in seeing more of Ruysch's amazing work and learning more about the man and the collection, I suggest you visit the new online museum devoted to the man, his art and craft, and his collection. Entitled "The Anatomical Preparations of Frederik Ruysch," the site is organized by a Ruysch Research group formed between the St. Petersburg Kunstkamera the the University of Amsterdam. Although at the moment it is, unfortunately, available only in Dutch, it will eventually have operative English and Russian versions (more on that when these versions launch), and promises to be a great resource, with information about the work, history, collections, and techniques of Frederik Ruysch, and, incredibly, featuring a gallery linking many of the surviving specimens to the artist/anatomist's original descriptions of the objects--a rare museological feat!

You can visit the new virtual Ruysch Museum website by clicking here. To find out more about museums that still house Ruysch specimens, you can visit these sites: St. Petersburg Kunstkammer, Museum Bleulandinum, and the Anatomisch Museum LUMC in Leiden. For much more information, please visit the citations in the bibliography for this post, which you will find listed below. Another great resource is Steven Jay Gould and Rosamond Purcell's Finders, Keepers: Eight Collectors, which you can find out more about (and order a copy of) by clicking here; you can also visit this book and others that feature images of or information about Ruysch's work in the Morbid Anatomy Library, which is open by appointment.

Bibliography for this post, listed alphabetically: The Anatomical Preparations of Frederik Ruysch, BibliOdyssey, The British Library, Christies Auction House, Dream Anatomy, The St. Petersburg Kunstkammer, Medisch Erfgoed, She-Philosopher, The Smithsonian, University of Amsterdam, Wikipedia: frederik_Ruysch, Wikipedia: Kunstkamera, The Zymoglyphic Museum.

Images, top to bottom:

1. Anatomische les van Dr. Frederik Ruysch, 1683; Jan van Neck (ca. 1634/'35 - 1714), Sourced here
2. A skeleton cries into a handkerchief, © The British Library Board, Sourced here
3. Crying skeletons with violin, feathers and fly, © The British Library Board, Sourced here
4. Sourced from the Zymoglyphic Museum
5. Skeleton with puppets, © The British Library Board, Sourced here
6. Body part puppets, © The British Library Board, Sourced here
7. Frederik Ruysch, (1638-1731). Thesaurus anatomicus primus [-decimus]... Het eerste [-tiende] anatomisch cabinet... Amsterdam: Jansson-Waesberg (part I and X), 1721 and 1716, Joannes Wolters (parts II-IX), 1702-1715., Christie's Auction House, Sourced here
8. Frederik Ruysch (1638–1731). Arrangement of wax-injected anatomy specimens, found here
9. Frederik Ruysch, Thesaurus animalium primus = Het eerste cabinet der dieren, 1710, Sourced here
10. Child's Head with Turkish Cap, attributed to Frederik Ruysch, Photo © Rosamond Purcell, Sourced here
11. Één van de anatomische preparaten van Frederik Ruysch, collectie Universiteitsmuseum, Nijmegen, Sourced here
12. Specimen of a child’s arm. Frederik Ruysch, Sourced here
13. Skeleton of Siamese twins. Preparation of Frederik Ruysch, Sourced here

"Beauty's Lot: As I Now Am, So You Shall Be," 1778

Caption reads (to the best of my deciphering, and sic on the spelling throughout):

Beautys Lot
Adorn'd with Tates, I well could Boast, Of Tons and Macaronys Toast;
I once was Fair, Young, Frisky, Gay, Could Please with songs and Dance the Hay
Dear Belle's reflect Ye Morals see, As I now am, so You shall be.
Pub as the act directs Feb. 1, 1778...

From today's Bibliodyssey post about satirical attacks on 18th Century women's hairstyles; click here to see full post. Click on image to see much larger, lovelier version.

Post-Mortem and Memorial Photography on Metafilter and Beyond

I just stumbled upon a delightful post on the topic of Memorial Photography on Metafilter. The post links to several websites, my favorite of which is the Flickr collection of "Jack Mord," the man behind The Thanatos Archive, which, by an odd coincidence, I just became a member of yesterday on the recommendation of John Troyer of Death Reference Desk; so far, it seems well-worth the $25 yearly fee. The Thanatos Archive, in the words of the homepage, is a repository for "an extensive collection of vintage post mortem and mourning photos dating back to the mid-1800s" while also being an online-community for collectors and enthusiasts. Highly recommended.

Click here to visit the Metafilter post. Bottom four images from from Jack Mord's Flickr set, which you can visit by clicking here. Top image from The Thanatos Archive, which you can preview and join by clicking here.

For more on this topic, see these previous posts: 1, 2, 3.

Skull Cathedral, Otranto, Italy

I just stumbled upon a story about the "Skull Cathedral of Otranto," which is located in the quaint sea-side town of Otranto, Italy and houses and displays the skeletons--arranged with great care and a decorative eye--of 800 Catholic martyrs in glass-fronted cases behind the altar. A local tourist website tells the story of the Cathedral's unusual interior decoration thusly: in 1480, the city is under attack by the Turks; the "Turkish commander summons 800 inhabitants, all of the able-bodied men, and forces them to choose between the Muslim faith and death. All 800 [martyrs] are beheaded on the hill of Minerva, and their skulls are preserved in the cathedral." (source here.)

And does the name Otranto ring a bell? It did for me, too. I find myself wondering if this cathedral and the grisly events which it memorializes comprised any (if not most!) of the inspiration for Horace Walpole's 1764 famous Gothic novel The Castle of Otranto.

The images above are drawn from a story about the cathedral found on the Environmental Graffiti website; you can see this original post here. For more on bones used as decorative material in churches, see Curious Expedition's wonderful story on the truly epic Sedlec Ossuary in the Czech Republic by clicking here.

Memorial Ring, 1868

Via Anonymous Works.

Memorials, Cathedral of Our Lady, Antwerp, Belgium

The Cathedral of Our Lady (Antwerp, Belgium) is the largest Gothic church in the Low Countries of Europe. Begun in 1352, it is most famous for its Peter Paul Rubens paintings. What struck me more on my visit was the amazing architecture and the beautiful and somewhat macabre memorials (see above) mounted throughout.

For more images, click here. For more information about the cathedral, click here.

"'Death and Life Contrasted'... or 'An Essay on Man,'" (Undated: 1750-1770?)

A nice modern-age Memento Mori: "'Death and Life Contrasted'... or 'An Essay on Man,'" printed by Bowles & Carver (undated: 1750-1770?). Found on BibliOdessey, one of my favorite very favorite websites.

"Transi de René de Chalon," Ligier Richier, 1547

A Morbid Anatomy reader sent me a wonderful image of this transi (or tomb figure depicting the decaying cadaver of the deceased) sculpted by Ligier Richier in 1547.

This fantastic figure, displayed in the Saint-Étienne church in the city Bar-le-Duc in France, once held the heart of its subject-- René de Chalon, Prince of Orange--in its raised hand, like a reliquary. The prince died at age 25 in battle following which, depending on which story you believe, either he or his widow requested that Chalon portray him in his tomb figure as "not a standard figure but a life-size skeleton with strips of dried skin flapping over a hollow carcass, whose right hand clutches at the empty rib cage while the left hand holds high his heart in a grand gesture" (Medrano-Cabral) set against a backdrop representing his earthly riches. Alas, the sculpture no longer contains Chalon's heart; it is rumored to have gone missing sometime around the French revolution.

Thanks, Pierre, for bringing this to my attention.