Hardcover
Life, death, science, and art meet in the wax Venus.

The Anatomical Venus

Wax / Sex / God / Death

$60.16

  • Hardcover

    224 pages

  • Release Date

    1 May 2016

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Summary

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 par…

Book Details

ISBN-13:9780500252185
ISBN-10:0500252181
Author:Joanna Ebenstein, Morbid Anatomy Museum
Publisher:Thames & Hudson Ltd
Imprint:Thames & Hudson Ltd
Format:Hardcover
Number of Pages:224
Release Date:1 May 2016
Weight:862g
What They're Saying

Critics Review

‘Wonderful and epically illustrated’ - Telegraph
‘Fabulous … A mesmerising marriage of art and science’ - Tatler
‘Joanna Ebenstein’s sumptuous book is fascinated by this era in which the study of nature was also the study of philosophy; in which a body created for medical purposes could also be read as a work of art’ - Guardian
‘An enchanting and repulsive book’ - Huffington Post
‘What Ebenstein argues is beguiling to our contemporary brains is that the figures weren’t strictly medical, but beautiful as well’ - vice.com

About The Author

Joanna Ebenstein

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.

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