12 February 2011

A Fun Day Out

Met up with the London Drawing Faction today for total immersion in the deep weirdness that is the Hunterian Museum. Starting at top left we have:
  1. Winston Churchill's false teeth, made from gold with platinum clips and mineral teeth. It was crafted in such a way that his lisp was not changed.
  2. A glass jar containing a chimp's head collected in 1792.
  3. The face of a child prepared by John Hunter to show a tumour in the nasal cavity.
  4. A shoe for correcting club foot made by Antonio Scarpa in 1849.
  5. A bronze sculpture of a monkey contemplating a human skull by Hugo Rheinhold c.1900. The creature is sitting on a book by Darwin and holds a pair of compasses in his right foot.
  6. A copy of the portrait of Daniel Lambert, the 52 stone man.
  7. A foetal porcupine in a jar (the item number 3476 is written in a beautiful hand, typical of the period around 1800).
  8. A long surgical tool from 1860 designed for recovering swallowed coins. The sponge at one end was soaked in anaesthetic and applied before using the other end.
  9. A life mask of John Hunter cast when he was aged 60.
  10. A pig foetus with a cleft palate.
  11. A brace buckle swallowed by a patient of Thomas Bond (known for his involvement in the Jack the Ripper case) in 1869.
Pen and ink 29cm x 36cm. Click to enlarge.

2 comments:

Curious Art said...

Great drawings of deeply worrisome stuff... one day I must visit this museum! It sounds a bit like the Mutter in Philadelphia.

p.s. I was wondering who would be the first to comment on Warmheart's perky nether point-- you win, ha!

Oscar Grillo said...

I would like to seen John Merryck's skeleton.