LONDON.- Published in collaboration with Morbid Anatomy,
The Anatomical Venus explores the strange and fascinating history of eroticized female anatomical wax models, which peaked in fashion in the 19th century. Packed with sublime examples from around the world, and documented in intricate detail, the book is the result of the authors global, ten-year photographic quest. Accompanying the captivating imagery, Ebensteins incisive commentary reveals the evolution of these enigmatic sculptures from wax effigy to fetish figure and the embodiment of the uncanny.
Beneath the original Venetian glass and rosewood case at La Specola in Florence lies Clemente Susinis Anatomical Venus (c. 1780), a perfect object whose luxuriously bizarre existence challenges belief. It or better, she was conceived as a means to teach human anatomy without need for constant dissection, which was messy, ethically fraught and subject to quick decay. This life-sized wax woman is adorned with glass eyes and real human hair and can be dismembered into multiple parts revealing, at the final remove, a foetus curled in her womb. Sister models soon appeared throughout Europe, where they not only instructed the specialist students, but also delighted the general public. Since their creation, these wax women have seduced, intrigued and amazed; The Anatomical Venus flickers on the edges of medicine and myth, votive and vernacular, fetish and fine art.
Joanna Ebenstein is a multi-disciplinary artist, curator, writer, lecturer and graphic designer. She runs the Morbid Anatomy blog and website, and is co-founder and creative director of the Morbid Anatomy Museum in Brooklyn, New York. She is also the author (with Dr Pat Morris) of Walter Potters Curious World of Taxidermy and co-editor (with Colin Dickey) of The Morbid Anatomy Anthology.