Corpses of Siamese twins, Everard Crijnsz. van der Maes, 1630, The Hague Historical Museum

Corpses of Siamese twins, Everard Crijnsz. van der Maes, 1630, The Hague Historical Museum. This image was kindly sent in by Morbid Anatomy reader Pipi Lotta in the Netherlands, who explains:

This painting was painted by order of the Court of Holland and donated to the Theatrum Anatomicum. In 1628 the States of Holland had payed Gerrit Claesse from Woerden 50 guilders for the bodies of his Siamese daughters. The Government wanted to do autopsy in the examination hall of the Theatrum Anatomicum and do so research on conjoined twins.

Apparently it was such a special event that the painter Van der Maes was commissioned to make a painting of it. He got paid for 36 guilders.

To read about this painting in the original dutch, click here. To find out more about the exhibition in which it was shown, click here.

"A Skeleton as a Woman Warning of the Dangers of Fornication," Oil on Canvas, French or Spanish School, c.1680

"A Skeleton as a Woman Warning of the Dangers of Fornication"
French or Spanish School, c.1680
Oil on canvas , 174 x 73 cm

From Wellcome Images; More here.

Memorial Portrait of Prince Maurice of Saxe-Zeitz (1652-1653), Oil on Canvas, 1653

Memorial portrait of Prince Maurice of Saxe-Zeitz (1652-1653) The portrait shows the seven moths old second-born Prince Maurice after his death. Oil on canvas, circa 1653.

Via Museum Schloss Moritzburg Zeitz; you can find out more here.

Unton Memorial Picture, Oil on Panel, Unknown Artist, c.1596.

The Unton Memorial Picture, oil on panel, by unknown artist, c.1596. Note the wonderful skeleton on his shoulder (click on image to see larger version)!

More on the painting, from the London National Portrait Gallery's website (which houses the peice):

This highly unusual narrative portrait of Unton's life was commissioned as a posthumous commemoration by his widow Dorothy Wroughton, and is recorded in her will (1634). At the heart of the composition is the portrait of Unton, flanked by figures of Fame (top left) and Death (top right), and surrounded by scenes from his life and death. These are (anti-clockwise, starting in the bottom right hand corner): 1. As an infant in the arms of his mother, Anne Seymour, formerly Countess of Warwick, at the Unton house of Ascott-under-Wychwood. 2. Studying at Oriel College, Oxford, where he took his degree in 1573. 3. Travelling beyond the Alps to Venice and Padua (1570s). 4. Serving with Leicester in the Netherlands (1585-6), with Nijmegen in the distance. 5. On his embassy to Henry IV at Coucy La Fère in northwest France, in an unsuccessful attempt to avert a peace treaty between France and Spain (1595-6). 6 On his deathbed, with a physician sent by Henry IV. 7. His body brought back to England across the Channel in a black ship. 8. His hearse on its way back to his home at Wadley House, Faringdon, near Oxford. 9. (centre right) Unton's life at Wadley House, with scenes showing him sitting in his study (top), talking with learned divines (bottom left), making music (above left), and presiding over a banquet, while a masque of Mercury and Diana is performed, accompanied by musicians. From the house his funeral procession leads, past a group of the poor and lame lamenting his death, to : 10. (left) Faringdon Church with this funeral (8 July 1596) in progress, and, in the foreground, his monument with Unton's recumbent effigy and the kneeling figure of his widow. More detailed information about this portrait to be found at www.npg.org.uk/research/programmes/making-art-in-tudor-britain/case-studies/the-portrait-of-sir-henry-unton-c.-1558-1596.php.

Théodore Géricault's Morgue-Based Preparatory Paintings for "Raft of the Medusa," A Guest Post by Paul Koudounaris

When I was in Los Angeles last week, I had a really fascinating conversation with my friend (and former Observatory presenter) Paul Koudounaris, author of the beautiful and essential book The Empire of Death: A Cultural History of Ossuaries and Charnel Houses. I asked him to do a guest post on the topic of our conversation--a series of relatively unknown preparatory paintings for Géricault's Raft of the Medusa that were based on human remains checked out, library like, from the illustrious Paris Morgue; following is Paul's writeup; really fascinating stuff!

Despite being among the finest early nineteenth-century macabre-themed paintings, Théodore Géricault’s various versions of still lifes with human body parts have remained little known and commented upon. Géricault is best remembered as a pioneering French Romantic and the auteur of the massive Raft of the Medusa [see bottom image]—an over-life-sized painting of the survivors of a shipwreck which had been a tabloid sensation in France in the 1810s. While Géricault’s public personae was that of a hard-living, chaotic, and tempestuous personality, as an artist he maintained an often obsessive dedication. The ship known as the Medusa sank in June of 1816, and Géricault soon began preparatory studies for his painted version, including interviews with survivors, and the construction of a scale model of the raft on which they escaped.

At the same time, Géricault also became increasingly interested in the naturalistic rendering of distressed anatomy, and started making frequent trips to morgues—in particular, that of the Hospital Beaujon in Paris. Initially these trips were intended simply to sketch body parts, but Géricault eventually found beauty in the severed limbs and heads he was studying, and began rendering them as subjects in their own right. At the time, there were programs in local morgues to lend human remains to art students for anatomical study—something like a lending library of body parts. Géricault would take them home to study them as they went through states of decomposition. He was known to stash various heads, arms, and legs under his bed—or alternately store them on his roof—so he could continue to render them in increasingly putrid states and in various angles. The upper torso in the so-called Head of a Guillotined Man in the Art Institute of Chicago (the title is misleading—the head is not guillotined) is one of those which is recognizable from multiple paintings, and is believed to be a thief who died in the insane asylum of Bicêtre; Géricault painted this head from multiple viewpoints over the two week period he kept it in his studio. In particular, the artist seems to have been fascinated by the subtle gradations of color body parts attained as they rotted.

He delighted in playing the morbid tones of putrefying flesh against a warm chiaroscuro which fades into a dark background and seems timeless and quiet, giving these anatomical fragments a presence that is almost iconic. Géricault made frequent jokes about the reaction of his neighbors to this kind of study—not surprisingly, they were displeased, especially with the smell emanating from his studio. Most of these paintings date to the later half of the 1810s. They were apparently entirely for the artist’s own edification—they were not sold to collectors, and most remained in his studio when he died at the age of 32 in 1824, and were offered as lots in his estate sale.

Perhaps the reason that Géricault’s still lifes with body parts have so frequently been overlooked is that they seem to defy interpretation, or lack any kind of editorial intent on the part of the artist. In that sense, they have always seemed perverse. Other, contemporary Romantic artists won great fame for their macabre scenes, but those scenes provide a context to guide the viewer’s reaction. In the Disasters of War by Goya, for example, severed body parts are placed within a moralizing relationship of cause and effect—war produces casualties, and the viewer is invited to disapprove of war itself as futile and barbaric. In various versions of the painting Nightmare by Henri Fuseli, macabre motifs such as demons are menacing, implying the threat of paralysis and loss of free will. But Géricault’s version of the macabre lacks this kind of interpretive framework—he presents his dismembered remains to the viewer simply as collections of objects, nothing more. His insistence on depriving his body parts of any identifiable context has ensured that they remain elusive, and thus marginalized in the history of art. But it is this same lack of context which has preserved them as unique objects of beauty.

To find out more about Paul's work, you can visit his website by clicking here; you can purchase a copy of his book (highly recommended!) from the Morbid Anatomy Giftshop by clicking here. Paul will also be participating in this years's iteration of The Congress for Curious People at The Coney Island Museum, so stay tuned for more on that!

"Portrait of the Professor of Medicine Jan Bleuland," Pieter Christoffel Wonder, 1808

The Romantic painters -- especially the Dutch Romantics -- were influenced by the landscapes, portraits and still-lifes of the Dutch 17th-century masters. Pieter Christoffel Wonder (1777-1852) painted a fascinating "Portrait of the Professor of Medicine Jan Bleuland" (1818), with the self-confident, bourgeois doctor standing in front of a skeleton draped with red arteries. It could have been part of Rembrandt's "Anatomy Lesson" of 1632 -- portraying the same fascination with the interior workings of the human body.

Found in a review of the exhibition "Masters of the Romantic Period -- Dutch Painting 1800-1850" at the Kunsthal on the Wall Street Journal; you can read the article by clicking here, and find out more about the exhibition by clicking here. Image found on the Collectie Utrecht website which can be seen by clicking here.

For another peek at Jan Bleuland at work, see this recent post.

Walton Ford at Paul Kasmin Gallery, NYC

Walton Ford has long been one of my favorite artists. He is even more one of my favorite artists after hearing him speak about his work last week at the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences. I appreciated Ford's large-scale, iconic, natural history illustration-inspired paintings on a whole new level after hearing his engaging accounts of their specific historical inspirations and his own artistic process. His book Pancha Tantra--which I purchased and had signed that evening--is a deluxe, over-sized, exquisite object in its own rights, fitting the work it celebrates; better yet, the back section of the book reprints many of Ford's stranger-than-fiction historical sources.

Over the weekend, I paid a visit to his current exhibition at Paul Kasmin Gallery in Chelsea; Ford told me that this was his best show yet, and I heartily agree. This show closes December 23th; I encourage all that are able to check out these ambitions, enormous, inspiring works in person before the show closes.

You can get full details on the exhibition here. You can purchase a copy of his book Pancha Tantra on Amazon by clicking here; You can also come visit my copy at The Morbid Anatomy Library (click here) any time. You can visit the website for the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences by clicking here. And special thanks to Lord Whimsy for bringing this lecture to my attention!

Images, top to bottom:
1) The Island, 2009; watercolor, gouache, pencil, and ink on paper; Panel 1: 95 1/2 x 36 inches, Panel 2: 95 1/2 x 60 inches, Panel 3: 95 1/2 x 36 inches
2) The Royal Menagerie at the Tower of London-3 December 1830, 2009
watercolor, gouache, pencil, and ink on paper; 60 x 119 1/2 inches
3) Borodino, 2009; watercolor, gouache, pencil, and ink on paper; 60 x 119 1/2 inches

"All Souls’ Day," William Adolphe Bouguereau (1859)

Lovely mourning painting, courtesy of the incomparable Wurzeltod Tumblr Feed. Thanks, Suzanne, as always!

"Petrus Koning with his Master," J. H. Prins, 1803

When at the Museum Boerhaave in the Netherlands for an Auzoux conference earlier this year, I stumbled upon (and photographed) this wonderful watercolor painting from 1803: "Petrus Koning with his Master."

Caption card reads:

Petrus Koning began his career as an apprentice to the Utrecht professor of anatomy and obstetrics, Jan Bleuland. They are depicted together here amid the University's collection of wet and dry human preparations.

Click on the image to see a larger version, with many more details apparent. Click here to visit the Museum Boerhaave website.

Mrs Bennett: Before and After, From the Wellcome Library

Above is a wonderful series of pathological portraits plucked from the Wellcome Library's extensive "Gentlefolk of Leeds Afflicted with Disease" Collection, (sic) and featured on the Wellcome Library Blog today. The portraits, both from around 1820, depict a Mrs. Bennett before-and-after undergoing a skin disease cure. The first portrait, showing her in the full subjection to her disease, is entitled, eloquently, "Mrs Bennett. Disease from 1818 to 1821". The second portrait, showcasing her complete recovery, is entitled, with equal flair, "Under Cure From 1818 to 1821."

See full story by clicking here. You can peruse the whole fascinating Wellcome Library Blog by clicking here. More on the fantastic, amazing, utterly entralling Wellcome Collection in these recent posts (1, 2, 3, 4, 5).

"The Anaemic Lady," Samuel van Hoogstraten (1627-1678)

The Anaemic Lady (De Bleekzuchtige Dame), ca. 1667. From the Rijksmuseum website:

This painting by Samuel van Hoogstraten is known as the 'Anaemic Lady'. A pale woman is hanging passively and lethargically in her chair, with her hands together. However, it is unlikely that she is ill. A doctor dressed in a strange, old-fashioned costume, is examining her urine to see whehttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifther she is pregnant. The man behind her looks with concern at the bottle. The situation is further clarified by the naked figures in the tablecloth and the painting above the door bearing an image of Venus, the goddess of love. A special role is played by the cat, often a symbol of sensuality. Like the mouse between its legs, this couple has been caught 'in the grip of lust'.

Click image to see much larger view.

More on the wonders of Dutch collections here.

Surgeon's Guild Portraits at the Amsterdams Historisch Museum, 17th and 18th Century

When I visited the Amsterdams Historisch Museum a few weeks ago, I was surprised and thrilled to find, in a room devoted to enormous guild portraits of different sorts of tradesmen, 2 walls devoted to portraits of surgeons guilds (see top photo for an installation view.)

The portraits range from the early 17th to the late 18th Century and are truly spectacular in scale, quality, and affect. Many of the guild portraits were painted during the annual surgeon's guild public dissection, for which the city would provide an executed criminal.

My favorite of these paintings is the third image down, the painting of one of my favorite historical figures of all time, Doctor Frederick Ruysch, dissecting an infant with the assistance of his son, who holds an animatedly posed child's skeleton. Ruysch was a brilliant Dutch anatomist famous for his imaginative tableaus using similarly animated tiny skeletons, as well as his uncannily life-like wet specimens, famously captured by Rosamond Purcell in the wonderful Finders, Keepers.

I have found copies of all the surgeon's guild paintings on view in this room (and a few more found in the museum's portrait database) and posted them here, for your pleasure.

Images, top to bottom :1) Installation view. 2)Anatomische les van Dr. Sebastiaan Egbertsz., ca. 1601-'03; Aert Pietersz. (ca. 1550 - 1612). 3) Anatomische les van Dr. Frederick Ruysch, 1683; Jan van Neck (ca. 1634/'35 - 1714). 4) De osteologieles van Dr. Sebastiaen Egbertsz., 1619; toegeschreven aan Nicolaes Eliasz. Pickenoy (1591 - 1653) toegeschreven aan Thomas de Keyser (1596 of 1597 - 1667). 5) Anatomische les van Prof. Frederik Ruysch, 1670; Adriaen Backer (ca. 1630-'32 - 1684). 6) Anatomische les van Dr. Willem Röell, 1728; Cornelis Troost (1697 - 1750). 7) Anatomische les van Dr. Jan Deijman (fragment), 1656; Rembrandt (1606 - 1669)

"The Anatomist (Der Anatom)," Gabriel von Max, 1869

This painting brings to mind Edgar Allen Poe's memorable quote: "the death of a beautiful woman is unquestionably the most poetical topic in the world..." It seems this maxim could also--at least circa 1869-- be applied to a beautiful dead woman about to be dissected by a pensive anatomist.

Learn more about the painter, Gabriel von Max, (who studied, among other things, parapsychology, somnambulism, hypnotism, spiritism, Darwinism, asiatic philosophy, and the ideas of Schopenhauer) here. See more images of his work here and here.

Thanks to Ludmilla Jordanova, author of one of my new favorite (and recently cited) books Sexual Visions: Images of Gender in Science and Medicine Between the Eighteenth and Twentieth Centuries,for bringing this painting to my attention. Check out the book for her compelling reading of this and other dissection paintings of the 19th Century featuring beautiful cadavers.

If this topic is of interest to you, you might want to check out a recent Morbid Anatomy post about a dissection print entitled Une Fin A l’Ecole Pratique.