Access Denied
IMPORTANT! If you’re a store owner, please make sure you have Customer accounts enabled in your Store Admin, as you have customer based locks set up with EasyLockdown app. Enable Customer Accounts
The Anatomical Venus
Out of Stock- Regular price
- $43.99
- Sale price
- $43.99
- Regular price
-
- Unit price
- / per
Deftly crafted dissectable female wax models take centre-stage in this disquieting volume for fans of the macabre, the ghoulish and medical history
Beneath the original Venetian glass and rosewood case at La Specola in Florence lies Clemente Susini's Anatomical Venus (c. 1790), a perfect object whose luxuriously bizarre existence challenges belief. It - or, better, she - was conceived as a means to teach human anatomy without the need for constant dissection, which was messy, ethically fraught and subject to quick decay. This life-sized wax woman is adorned with glass eyes and human hair and can be dismembered into dozens of parts revealing, at the final remove, a tranquil foetus curled in her womb. Sister models soon appeared throughout Europe, where they not only instructed the specialist students, but also delighted the general public.
The Anatomical Venus is a celebration of these female wax models and reveals their evolution from wax effigy to fetish figure and the embodiment of the uncanny. Today, these images trouble the edges of our neat categorical divides between life and death, science and religion, body and soul, effigy and ecstasy, spectacle and education, kitsch and fine art. Skilfully written by a curator of the macabre, the beautiful and the spiritual, this is a meticulously illustrated survey of these anatomical odalisques and the cultural and artistic intersection they inhabit.
About the Authors
Joanna Ebenstein is a multi-disciplinary artist, curator, writer, lecturer and graphic designer. She runs the Morbid Anatomy blog and website, and founded the Morbid Anatomy Museum. Ebenstein photographs, curates and collects artefacts, images and texts relating to curious collections, early museums and cabinets of curiosity, collectors and collecting, medical museums and museums of natural history.
The Morbid Anatomy Museum was founded by Joanna Ebenstein and is located in Brooklyn, New York.
You May Also Like
View more
This product currently has no recommended items.
Sign up to our Newsletter
Our weekly newsletter is a curated collection of interviews, articles, stunning images and books we think you’ll love. Sign up to get 20% off.
In accordance with our privacy policy, you may unsubscribe at any time.
Invalid password
Enter
- Choosing a selection results in a full page refresh.