CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 6/3/2016

The Anatomical Venus

"For men to be instructed," French medical illustrator Arnaud-Éloi Gautier d'Agoty wrote in the eighteenth century, "they must be seduced by aesthetics, but how can anyone render the image of death agreeable?" Anatomical Venus author and Morbid Anatomy Museum founder Joanna Ebenstein answers this question, alongside many even darker and deeper ones, in her fascinating new study of the history of wax anatomical "Slashed Beauties" from the eighteenth-century to today, launching tomorrow with an all-day symposium at the Morbid Anatomy Museum. Pictured here are details of two dissectible Venuses by Clemente Susini (1780-82). Ebenstein notes, "Female anatomical figures almost always have their skin intact, while male figures are more likely to be depicted flayed to their muscles."