Anatomy, muscles of the human body (plate VI) – Jan Wandelaar after Bernhard Siegfried Albinus, 1747

ANATOMY AS ART: THE MUSCLES OF THE HUMAN BODY ACCORDING TO ALBINUS

“Musculorum Tabula VI” Copperplate engraving made between 1739–1743 by Jan Wandelaar for the celebrated work “Tabulae Sceleti et Musculorum Corporis Humani” by Bernhard Siegfried Albinus, published in 1747 in Leiden by Johan and Herman Verbeek. Size: 62 x 47.5 cm.

On this plate we see “the second layer of the muscles, together with several ligaments, exposed parts of the skeleton, and part of the scrotum.”

“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 a professor at Leiden University, and engraver Jan Wandelaar (1690–1759) collaborated closely to create engravings that were both scientifically accurate and visually exceptional.

To improve the scientific accuracy of anatomical illustrations, Albinus and Wandelaar developed a new technique in which a kind of grid was placed at a fixed distance from the anatomical subject, through which the draughtsman studied the object. The grid then served as a guide for the final drawing, which was built up square by square.

Albinus believed in the concept of the “homo perfectus“, an idealised perfect human model of which all people were derivatives and variants. To depict this perfect human, the illustrations were composed from multiple human models. Earlier anatomical representations, such as those in the work of Andreas Vesalius, were typically based on individual bodies; Albinus, by contrast, strove for a composite, idealised human model.

Albinus believed so strongly in his work that he reportedly spent 24,000 florins — approximately €1.9 million in today’s money — to have it produced. His investment yielded plates without equal, widely regarded as among the finest engravings ever made. Before Jan Wandelaar met Bernhard Albinus, he was already a skilled artist in the field of natural history. He studied under Dutch printmaker Jacob Folkema, Dutch engraver and cartographer Willem van der Gouwen, painter Gerard de Lairesse, and botanist and anatomist Frederik Ruysch. From 1746 until his death, Wandelaar lived in Albinus’s house.

Price: Euro 950,-