Tables of the skeleton and muscles of the human body, 17. Tab.: Muscles of the Head; Coccyx; Thorax; Shoulder, composed of the Scapula and Clavicle.

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London, Printed by H. Woodfall, for John and Paul Knapton, 1749, Royal Folio (678 x 520 mm), 1 engraved plate and 2 leafs of plate explanations. This splendid copperplate of the bones and muscles drawn by Jan Wandelaar established a new standard in anatomical illustration, which remained unsurpassed for their artistic beauty and scientific accuracy. In an attempt to increase the scientific accuracy of anatomical illustration, Bernhard Siegfried Albinus (1697-1770) and Jan Wandelaar (1690-1759) the artist and engraver 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 drawings such as those accompanying Vesalius' work were drawn from single specimens. Albinus preferred athletic slender forms. 'Tabulae sceleti et musculorum corporis humani' (1747) was criticized by such scholars as Petrus Camper, especially for the whimsical backgrounds added to many of the pieces by Wandelaar, but Albinus staunchly defended him. 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 lived in Leiden and was extremely popular. "[Albinus'] works [.] were originally published in Latin at Leiden, but some were reprinted in other places. Especially notable are the first London reprints, in 1749, [.] in Latin; and (in a shorter version) in English, as Tables of the skeleton and muscles of the human body, H. Woodfall for John and Paul Knapton. The plates for these reprints were most carefully and elegantly re-engraved." Roberts & Tomlinson, p.329. Seller Inventory # 67881

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