Exquisite Bodies on Show at Wellcome Collection
The Curious and Grotesque Story of Anatomical Models
Jul 29, 2009
In Victorian times the public sought thrills and excitement of a very strange nature. Museums and touring displays of anatomical models attracted crowds of spectators desperate for knowledge of the human body. They provided a fascinating and unusual afternoon's entertainment combined with a touch of fairground bawdiness and a few scientific truths.
Exquisite Bodies – Or the Curious and Grotesque Story of Anatomical Models
According to the Wellcome Collection their latest exhibition, entitled Exquisite Bodies – Or the Curious and Grotesque Story of Anatomical Models, "celebrates the weird, marvellous and downright fraudulent in medicine's past, and asks us to ponder how distinctions between the two are made." In a way that will appeal to both curious visitors and medical professionals, the show explores Victorian attitudes to health, birth, disease, sexual reproduction, and the moral issues connected to these subjects.
The display features 50 anatomical models dating from the 18th, 19th and 20th Centuries, loaned by European and UK collections. Some are accurate examples designed to be used for training medical professionals, while others were used in the more questionable parts of town to highlight public health issues. With so much of the population being illiterate, anatomical museums and fairgrounds presented ideal opportunities to pass on information about sexual reproduction and venereal disease, subjects that were still very much taboo.
Exquisite Bodies – Highlights of the Exhibition
The exhibition features some truly weird and wonderful items from posters and paintings to models of a bearded lady, a cyclops, a model showing the placenta being extracted, a group of highly graphic three-dimensional images showing the ravages of syphilis, and an ivory anatomical Venus, dating from the 17th Century.
The Anatomical Venus
When it came to health issues the Victorian catchphrase was "Know Thyself". The Anatomy Act of 1832 meant students, and other interested parties, could learn anatomy through the use of wax models rather than corpses which were always in short supply. Body snatchers, who would rob the graves of paupers, could not keep up with demand!
The anatomical Venus represented an idealised female form with removable parts, often with a foetus in situ. They became the focal point of museums and travelling shows attracting large crowds who, for an extortionate fee, would watch a supposed surgeon 'dissect' the body.
Victorian women took great interest in health and moral issues. They were allowed into medical museums unaccompanied, albeit at separate visiting times to men. There was much scandal among members of the medical profession; was anatomy too indelicate a subject for respectable women?
The interest in anatomical models came from many quarters. A natural history museum, established by the Duke of Tuscany in the late 18th Century, featured the first-known public exhibition of anatomical wax figures. Other wealthy patrons included Joseph II (Joseph Benedikt Anton Michael Adam, 1741-1790, Holy Roman Emperor from 1765 to 1790). In 1775 he opened a workshop for the production of wax models. Some of the finest anatomical Venuses come from these Florentine factories.
Dr Kahn's Anatomical and Pathological Museum
The exhibition includes a wide variety of additional items including a handbook dating from 1863 relating to Dr Joseph Kahn's Anatomical and Pathological Museum, one of London's most famous anatomy museums, located on Oxford Street. The handbook lists his collection of life-size dissectible models including the Apollo Belvedere and Venus de Medici.
Two-Headed Calves
One of the most curious items on display is a two-headed calf. These stuffed models, often carefully faked, were common to both natural history museums and fairground freak shows worldwide. Genuine two-headed calves have been known to live for up to seven days after birth.
Exquisite Bodies – Programme of Events
To accompany the exhibition the Wellcome Collection is hosting a lively programme of events including free art workshops and an evening of Victorian titillation: Sex – A Victorian Mystery.
Exquisite Bodies will be on show from 30th July to 18th October 2009. Full details of this fascinating exhibition and related events can be obtained from the Wellcome Collection.
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