6 Skeleton with its Left Arm Raised and Facing Left

Title: Skeleton with its Left Arm Raised and Facing Left

(from Bernhard Siegfried Albinus, Tabulae sceleti et musculorum corporis humani, Knapton edition)

Artist/Source: Gérard Jean-Baptiste Scotin (1698-1755)

Date: 1749

Medium/ Technique: engraving

UCL Art Museum #4157

Bernhard Siegfried Albinus (1697-1770) studied in Leiden and then Paris, where he devoted himself to anatomy and botany. He later lectured on anatomy and surgery in Leiden, quickly becoming one of the most famous teachers of anatomy in Europe. In 1745 he was appointed Professor of the Practice of Medicine.

Albinus is perhaps best known for his illustrated treatise titled Tabulae sceleti et musculorum corporis humani, which was first published in Leiden in 1747, largely at his own expense. The artist and engraver with whom Albinus did nearly all of his work was Jan Wandelaar (1690-1759). In an attempt to increase the scientific accuracy of anatomical illustration, Albinus and Wandelaar devised a new technique of placing nets with square webbing at specified intervals between the artist and the anatomical specimen and copying the images using the grid patterns. Tabulae was highly criticized by scholars, especially for the whimsical backgrounds added to many of the pieces by Wandelaar, but had far reaching impact upon artists, including John Flaxman who had an edition in his own library.

In this large engraving by Gérard Jean-Baptiste Scotin (1698-1755), one of the printmakers employed to produce plates for the English translation of Albinus’ treatise, the skeleton turns away from the viewer to provide a posterior view. Impossibly, without tendons linking its bones or muscles to maintain its posture, the skeleton stands in a noble pose recalling the Apollo Belvedere. It gazes past a figure of the river deity of the Styx, frontier to the underworld, reclining on a sepulchre.

 

Sources:

James Elkins, “Two Conceptions of the Human Form: Bernhard Siegfried Albinus and Andreas Vesalius,” Artibus et Historiae 7, no.14 (1986).

Robert Beverly Hale and Terence Coyle, Albinus on Anatomy (New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1979).

Reinhard Hildebrand, “Attic Perfection in Anatomy: Bernhard Siegfried Albinus (1697-1700) and Samuel Thomas Soemmerring (1755-1830),” Annals of Anatomy – Anatomischer Anzeiger 187, no.5-6 (2005).

Related works from Albinus, Tabulae sceleti et musculorum corporis humani, Knapton edition, 1749

Portfolio (Large French Anatomical Prints 1)

  • # 4157 Scotin, Skeleton Figure
  • # 4158 Grignion, Anatomical Study of a Body
  • # 4159 Ravenet, Anatomical Study of a Body
  • # 4160 Grignion, Anatomical Study of a Body
  • # 4164 Boitard, Anatomical Study of a Body
  • # 4166 Scotin, Anatomical Study of a Body
  • # 4168 Grignion, Anatomical Studies of the Spine
  • # 4169 Grignion, Anatomical Studies of the Spine
  • # 4171 Scotin, Anatomical Studies of the Back and Shoulder
  • # 4177 Scotin, Anatomical Studies of the Tibia and Foot
  • # 4178 Scotin, Anatomical Studies of the Tibia and Foot

Portfolio (Large French Anatomical Prints 2)

  • # 4161 Boitard, Anatomical Studies showing Musculature of the Figure
  • # 4162 Scotin, 24 Anatomical Studies of Skuls, Feet and Limbs
  • # 4163 Scotin, 48 Anatomical Studies showing Musculature of the Skull
  • # 4165 Ravenet, Anatomical Study of a Skeleton
  • # 4167 Grignion, 9 Anatomical Studies of the Torso
  • # 4170 Grignion, 24 Anatomical Studies of the Shoulder
  • # 4172 Scotin, 22 Anatomical Studies of the Arm
  • # 4173 Boitard, 26 Anatomical Studies of the Arm and Hand
  • # 4174 Scotin, 17 Anatomical Studies of the Hip
  • # 4175 Scotin, 12 Anatomical Studies of the Hip and Leg
  • # 4176 Scotin, 8 Anatomical Studies of the Hip and Leg

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