MAGNIFICENT PLATES FROM THE MOST ARTISTICALLY PERFECT ANATOMICAL ATLAS
Copper engravings made between 1739-1743 by Jan Wandelaar for Bernhard Siegfried Albinus‘ famous “Tabulae Sceleti et Musculorum Corporis Humani” published in 1747 in Leiden by Johan and Herman Verbeek. Size: 62 x 47,5 cm (each).
Tabulae Sceleti et Musculorum Corporis Humani was arguably the most important illustrated anatomical work of the Eighteenth Century. Anatomist Bernhard Siegfried Albinus (1697-1770) who was professor at Leiden university, and engraver Jan Wandelaar (1690–1759) collaborated closely to create engravings that were scientifically accurate and exceptionally visually appealing.
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. Albinus believed in the idea of “homo perfectus“, an idealized perfect human model based on which all humans were derived as variants. In order to represent this perfect human, the illustrations were drawn from multiple specimens. Earlier anatomical depictions such as those accompanying Andreas Vesalius‘ work (which Albinus had edited earlier) were drawn from single specimens.
The anatomical figures were placed in lush, elaborate Baroque landscapes and architecture, giving the figures a spatial context, added aesthetic interest, and created an illusion of vitality.
Tabulae was criticized by such scholars as Petrus Camper, especially for the whimsical backgrounds, but Albinus staunchly defended Wandelaar. Wandelaar made the first of the plates in 1742, well before the publication of the Tabulae, and this included the skeleton superposed in front of a rhinoceros. This was the famous rhinoceros Clara which at that time stayed in Leiden and was extremely popular.
Albinus believed so strongly in the work that he is said to have spent 24,000 florin -about €1,9 million today- to produce it. His investment provided plates that are incomparable and widely considered to rank among the best in engraving history.
Prior to meeting Albinus, Jan Wandelaar was already an accomplished natural history artist. He studied with Dutch printmaker Jacob Folkema, Dutch engraver and mapmaker Willem van der Gouwen, painter Gérard de Lairesse, and botanist and anatomist Frederik Ruysch. From 1746 until his death, Wandelaar lived in Albinus’s house.
Price: Euro 1.450,- (each)
