Marieke Hendriksen will give a lecture on ‘The Art of Modelling in Plaster’ at Surgeons’ Hall Museums in Edinburgh, 15 November 2016

The Art of Modelling in Plaster: Transmission of Technique Between Anatomists and Artists at The Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh around 1800

It has long been known that anatomists and visual artists worked closely together in the production of anatomical atlases and models in early modern Europe, and that anatomists and other medical men learned drawing techniques to illustrate their own work, yet we know little about the development, understanding and transmission of various other techniques for depicting the body among artists and anatomists.

Marieke Hendriksen, a postdoctoral researcher at Utrecht University, the Netherlands, fills that gap by focusing on the development and mutual influence of techniques like plaster casting and wax and papier-mâché modeling by artists and anatomists. In this lecture, she will explore how anatomists and artists exchanged know-how about plaster casting and used it in their respective practices. After the talk there will be the chance to take a look at the collections in Surgeons’ Hall Museums.

This is part of a Wellcome Trust Research Bursary awarded to use the RCSEd Institutional Archive to study practices and resources used by the members of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh to preserve and make models of the human body in the period 1700-1850.