Arising from a shared image of an 'anatomical man' upon which my friend R is preparing an academic paper, I remembered that I had an old anatomical atlas ferreted away here amongst the shelves of books which might interest her...but I thought that it might also interest readers here - so here are a few images for you all to enjoy.
Difficult to scan because the pages are large and a bit fragile, and also rather stained (I have only given them a brief clean-up) I nevertheless am always amazed at the quality of 19th century colour lithography. I think these images are dated at around 1880 - but can't be sure until I have done more research on them, because there is no date included in the volume.
A fascinating example of a time when a medical illustration was also very much a work of art. No doubt more modern illustrators are still creating their own artworks...but to discover more, I will have to visit a medical museum such as the Wellcome Collection - or ask my clever friend. Thank you so much for sharing this image and prompting this post, R!
Additional information...after a little research, it appears that someone is selling an e-book of the atlas here (worth reading for a detailed description of the plates)...from which it appears that it is much older than I thought at first, being originally published in Paris in 1845.
I have a different anatomical man which had been my grandfather's when he was in medical school in the first years of the 20th century: "Dr Minder's Anatomical Manikin of the Human Body." Again, it is all chromolithographed, is a bit like a paper doll, and has multiple images showing skeleton, musculature, veins and arteries, then organs with several little individual, removable pieces- heart, lungs, stomach and so on. Unlike yours, the poor man has no external genitalia whatever. For reasons unknown my grandfather never finished his training, but I'm happy the Manikin was saved.
Posted by: Margaret Lambert | Monday, January 18, 2010 at 19:43
I love anatomical drawings. Back in my nursing school days I had a text book where various drawings were done on transparencies and when overlapped they where to provide an image of how all the parts fit together.
I think I've just revealed how long ago its been since I attended school, LOL!
Darla
Posted by: Darla | Tuesday, January 19, 2010 at 15:37
Thank you for the link to my site where the e-book is for sale. I have recently revised the book and improved the scans. It will soon be available for sale on Amazon.com check the site for details:
http://figure-drawings.com/anatomy-artists-painters.html
Posted by: Tom Richardson | Monday, February 15, 2010 at 16:51