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This chalk drawing by J. H. Hasselhorst relates closely to an oil painting of the same subject in the Historisches Museum in Frankfurt and is probably a study for it. Small differences between the drawing and the painting are found, for example, in the shape of the chair back and in the stack of books on which the Frankfurt anatomist and anthropologist Johann Christian Gustave Lucae leans, next to the head of the cadaver. The drawing depicts the dissection of the body of an eighteen-year-old woman who had committed suicide, selected for its attractive proportions, in order to determine the ideal measurements of the female body. The results of this study were published by Lucae with plates by Hermann Junker in 1864 under the title: ‘Zur Anatomie der schönen weiblichen Form’.
Title
The Dissection of a Young, Beautiful Woman Directed by J. Ch. G. Lucae (1814–1885) in Order to Determine the Ideal Female Proportions
Date
1864
Medium
black chalk on paper
Measurements
H 33.6 x W 41.6 cm
Accession number
25532i
Acquisition method
presumed to be part of the collection formed by Henry S. Wellcome
Work type
Drawing
