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Gymnastics of the organs
The poster reproduced here advertises the fitness training regime of Professor Desbonnet. Edmond Desbonnet (1868-1953), born in Lille, was a health entrepreneur who opened his first school of physical culture in his native city in 1895, and subsequently created a… Continue reading
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Shackled in leg irony: black humour of the lower limb
Mezzotint by Jacob Gole (1660?-1737?) after Annibale Carracci. Wellcome Library no. 24994i It is a common experience to have enough feet but not enough shoes. The man shown here is, paradoxically, in the opposite situation: he has plenty of shoes but… Continue reading
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Interpreting caricatures
By their very nature, caricatures (in the sense of graphic works) distort the truth for humorous effect, but not quite enough to make their subjects unrecognizable. Quite how caricature artists have steered between the Scylla of distortion and the Charybdis… Continue reading
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Soyez le bienvenu!
The Wellcome Trust was honoured to receive a visit today by H.E. The French Ambassador, M. Bernard Emié. Among the items shown to him was the most splendid of the Wellcome Library’s recent French acquisitions, the portrait of the… Continue reading
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Health of the People — British style
The Wellcome Library has acquired a collection of 600 British posters dating from the 1940s to the 1990s advertising the health-maintenance activities of the British state. Most were produced by the Central Office of Information for the U.K. Ministry… Continue reading
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New article on a portrait of record
Drawing by Pierre Chasselat. Wellcome Library no. 729420i An exceptional neoclassical portrait drawing that was acquired by the Wellcome Library in 2010 is the subject of an article in the current (April 2012) issue of The Burlington magazine. [1] The… Continue reading
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Easter 2012: “O death where is thy sting?”
Easter week celebrates the moment when, in Christian metaphysics, mortality is overcome by everlasting life. The crucifixion of Jesus Christ redeems mankind from the sinful state into which mankind fell through Adam’s disobedience to the will of God in the… Continue reading
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The Georgian medicine vendor as physician: William Brodum
Wellcome Library no. 20131i A watercolour in the Wellcome Library (left) shows an interior with three figures. In the centre a plump, self-satisfied looking man looks down with approval at the work of the second figure, on the right, who… Continue reading
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The ‘Orphans’ go for a short walk
In 2009 the Wellcome Library acquired four large paintings known as the Acts of Mercy. They had been painted by Frederick Cayley Robinson between 1915 and 1920 for display in the Middlesex Hospital, in the Fitzrovia district of central… Continue reading
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Portrait of a lady in Nizamabad: Isabel Kerr. Wellcome Library Item of the Month.
Photograph by G.M. Kerr, 1926. Wellcome Library no. 726380i. This photographic print is one of the apparently few and elusive portraits of Isabel Kerr (1875-1932), a Methodist missionary who founded the Victoria Treatment Hospital for people with leprosy at… Continue reading