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Tag: iconography

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  • X-rays by Sir Gervas Powell Glyn, Bt.

    24/09/2012

    Wellcome Library no. 70i Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen (left) discovered X-rays through a combination of accident and experiment in December 1895, in his laboratory at the University of Würzburg. When he realized that he was looking through opaque objects, and was… Continue reading

  • Graphic intimations of mortality

    13/09/2012

    The memento mori pictures in the Wellcome Library range from complex and learned allegories to popular works which encourage their owners to laugh in the face of fate. A comparable collection, focused on the Dance of death, was acquired by… Continue reading

  • Item of the Month, August 2012: British rabies posters from the 1970s

    31/08/2012

    For many in this country, the end of August traditionally marks the end of the summer holidays, as children return to school and parents return to the workplace. During the late 1970s and 1980s, as many Brits returned from holidays increasingly spent… Continue reading

  • Gymnastics of the organs

    03/08/2012

    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

  • Capturing brains: grey matter turns pink

    24/07/2012

    This striking and beautiful exposure of the surface of the human brain recently won the Wellcome Image Awards. Taken by Robert Ludlow as the patient awaited a treatment for epilepsy, this vibrant, colourful picture offers a stark contrast to the… Continue reading

  • Shackled in leg irony: black humour of the lower limb

    18/06/2012

    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

  • Interpreting caricatures

    02/05/2012

    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

  • Soyez le bienvenu!

    26/04/2012

      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

  • Health of the People — British style

    17/04/2012

      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

  • New article on a portrait of record

    11/04/2012

    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