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| Joseph Wright of Derby Écorché Figure 1774 drawing British Museum |
"This line drawing is one of several studies made by Wright during his time in Rome (1773-75) from an écorché figure by the French sculptor Jean-Antoine Houdon (1741-1828). Houdon, who studied in Rome from 1764 to 1768, produced his so-called écorché au bras tendu in 1767. It was the result of intense study of dissections at the hospital of Saint Louis des Français. Houdon's figure, with outstretched right arm, served him specifically as preparation for a life-size marble statue of St John the Baptist. We may assume that Wright made his drawings of Houdon's écorché figure at the French Academy in Rome, where it was then situated. By this time, however, casts were beginning to be taken from the figure, which rapidly became widely known and imitated."
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| John Flaxman (original owner) Articulated Human Skeleton ca. 1780-90 given to Sir John Soane in 1836 by the Flaxman family Sir John Soane's Museum, London |
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| John Flaxman Studies of the Human Skeleton ca. 1780-90 drawing Royal Academy of Arts, London |
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| John Flaxman Studies of the Human Skeleton ca. 1780-90 drawing Royal Academy of Arts, London |
"It is not known when John Flaxman acquired his anatomical skeleton. As early as 1760, however, he must have observed William Hunter's demonstrations on anatomy with the aid of a human skeleton. Where Flaxman obtained his skeleton is again unknown, although it may have been through contact with one of the surgeons connected with the Royal Academy – either Hunter himself (who died in 1783), John Sheldon, who held the post until his death in 1808, or possibly his successor, Sir Anthony Carlisle. Until the Anatomy Act was passed in 1832 it was technically illegal for anyone to procure cadavers either for dissection or to obtain skeletons – excepting those of executed criminals."
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| Thomas Banks Anatomical Crucifixion 1801 plaster cast on wooden cross Royal Academy of Arts, London |
"This macabre écorché, cast from the body of a Chelsea pensioner, suspended and stretched as if from the effects of crucifixion, is the result of a bizarre experiment. In 1801, Benjamin West, Thomas Banks and Richard Cosway were discussing the anatomical inaccuracies of past depictions of the crucified Christ. The basic fault, they believed, lay in artists' habits of studying only the life model or stiff corpse. Truth, they concluded, could only be achieved through observing the freshly stretched limbs of a crucified figure, in which the musculature revealed the transition from life to death."
"The three Academicians approached the eminent anatomist Joseph Constantine Carpue, who reported that, 'shortly after this application, a circumstance occurred at the college of Chelsea, which enabled me to comply with their request.' He recorded how, on 2 October 1801, a Chelsea pensioner, Ensign James Legg, having had a dispute with a fellow pensioner, Ensign William Lamb, 'entered his bedroom with two loaded pistols, presented one to Lamb, and requested him to give him the satisfaction that one soldier had a right to demand from a fellow soldier. Lamb indignantly threw the pistol on the ground, when Legg fired the other pistol, and shot Lamb through the thorax. He immediately expired.' After Legg's trial and hanging, Carpue successfully applied to the surgeon of Chelsea Hospital for the cadaver: 'a building was erected near the place of execution; a cross provided; the subject was nailed on the cross; the cross suspended, when the body, being warm, fell into the position that a dead body must fall into, let the cause of death be what it may.' Thomas Banks then produced two casts: one from the naked figure and one after the figure had been flayed by Carpue. The first cast is now untraced. Banks displayed one or both of the casts in his studio in Newman Street, which 'for a length of time was resorted to by crowds of persons for the purpose of examining it."
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| George Stubbs Standing Écorché Figure (study for an unexecuted anatomical plate) ca. 1804-1806 drawing Yale Center for British Art |
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| George Stubbs Standing Figure (study for an unexecuted anatomical plate) ca. 1804-1806 drawing Yale Center for British Art |
"By the second half of the eighteenth century, a number of British artists cultivated a serious interest in anatomy. Foremost among these was George Stubbs (1724-1806), whose expertise was such that by his mid-twenties he was already giving private instruction to medical students in York (although his activities attracted suspicion in some quarters). Around 1759 Stubbs began work on his greatest achievement, The Anatomy of the Horse, published in 1766, although it was not until the mid-1790s that he produced a series of drawings based on dissection from the human body. Although these drawings were never engraved, they were part of an intended work entitled A Comparative Anatomical Exposition of the Human Body with that of a Tiger and a Common Fowl."
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| Benjamin Robert Haydon Écorché Cadaver lying prone 1805 drawing Royal Academy of Arts, London |
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| Benjamin Robert Haydon Bones and Muscles of the Pelvis 1805 drawing Royal Academy of Arts, London |
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| Benjamin Robert Haydon Anatomical Study of Lower Legs 1805 drawing Royal Academy of Arts, London |
"On his return to London in Autumn 1805 Haydon moved to 3 Broad Street, Carnaby Market. He then began to examine dissected cadavers made available to him by a surgeon in Hatton Garden. 'The sight of a real body laid open,' he noted, 'exposed the secrets of all the markings so wonderfully that my mind got a new and confirmed spring, the distinction between muscle, tendon, and bone was so palpable now that there could be no mistake again for ever.' In 1806 Haydon, Wilkie, and several other students at the Royal Academy subscribed to a series of lectures on anatomy by Charles Bell. It was there, according to Haydon, 'I concluded my anatomical studies.'
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| Charles Landseer Écorché Cadaver lying prone 1815 drawing Wellcome Collection, London |
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| Charles Landseer Écorché Cadaver on tilted support 1815 drawing Wellcome Collection, London |
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| Charles Landseer Écorché Cadaver lying supine 1815 drawing Wellcome Collection, London |
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| Charles Landseer Écorché Head and Shoulders (after plaster figure by Edme Bouchardon) 1815 drawing Wellcome Collection, London |
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| Charles Landseer Écorché Head and Shoulders (after plaster figure by Edme Bouchardon) ca. 1815 drawing Wellcome Collection, London |
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| Charles Landseer Study of Skull ca. 1815 drawing Wellcome Collection, London |
"Charles Landseer and his brother Thomas were sent by their father John Landseer to study under Benjamin Robert Haydon in 1815. Haydon had begun to take on pupils since 1809, when Charles Eastlake had come to him for instruction. 'Haydon's School,' as it became in the years following 1815, adopted a curriculum which reversed current academic practice. Students began by studying and copying anatomical plates as well as Haydon's own anatomical drawings. They then moved on to the actual dissection of cadavers. Only when they understood thoroughly the principles of anatomy were they allowed to draw from the Antique – in the form of the Elgin Marbles at the British Museum. Haydon's students' practical exposure to dissection came via a subscription to Sir Charles Bell's anatomy classes. . . . In 1864 William Bewick recalled how he had 'dissected at Sir Charles Bell's theatre of anatomy for three seasons with the Landseers. We dissected every part of the muscles of the body, and made drawings in red, black, and white chalk, the size of nature. These drawing were thought by the professor the finest ever made from dissection.'
– quoted passages from The Artist's Model: its Role in British Art from Lely to Etty by Ilaria Bignamini and Martin Postle (exhibition catalogue, Nottingham University Art Gallery, 1991)