Tag: iconography

Watercolour by Thomas Rowlandson, ca. 1825. Wellcome Library no. 726498i The Wellcome Library in London has acquired a watercolour by Thomas Rowlandson (1756-1827). Yes, without apology, yet another work by Rowlandson has been added to the large number of prints… Continue reading

  Of the many joys that accompany a stroll around the Wellcome Library’s stores, an unexpected encounter with a rhinoceros must rank as one of the more novel. The beast in question is Clara, an Indian Rhino who became in… Continue reading

Visitors to the Wellcome Library see in the entrance hall four paintings of the Works of Mercy by Frederick Cayley Robinson. They are allegories embedding the oppositions within themes relevant to the historic mission of hospitals: institutions and individuals, children… Continue reading

Campo Santi Giovanni e Paolo, Venice: Scuola Grande and Hospital of San Marco, with the equestrian sculpture of Bartolomeo Colleoni in the foreground. Albumen print, 189-. Wellcome Library no. 665112i. A set of three volumes on art-collecting in Venice was… Continue reading

This print (left) sits in the Wellcome Library among a group of Dutch posters about the use of recreational drugs. It is exceptional for its casual production values: scraps of paper torn out of a notebook, containing incoherent verses which… Continue reading

Isaac Newton by James Thornhill. Wellcome Library no. 45765i Stoke Court, at Stoke Edith in Herefordshire, was a large and imposing house built between 1696 and 1704 by the Foley family, descendants of the ironmasters Richard Foley (1580-1657) and Thomas… Continue reading

This is the time of year when the Wellcome Library begins to host internships and work experience placements for students. Some of them are arranged by schools and universities, while others are organized as private initiatives by the students themselves.… Continue reading

The Wellcome Library has acquired a substantial number of posters (circa 1,100) published in thirty African countries to promote health and wellbeing. Dating from 1993 to 2010, they were collected in the latter year from the following countries: Burkina Faso;… Continue reading

As today is the 200th anniversay of the birth of Sir James Young Simpson, we did think of marking the day by highlighting the works in our collections written by him, which reflect not just his pioneering work in the… Continue reading

The great aspirations, dramatic events, heroic deeds and terrible crimes against persons that occurred in France between the first stirrings of the Revolution in 1789 and the end of the First Empire in 1815 remain stamped in the public memory… Continue reading