#frederick ruysch

[fuckingfreud]

"Dialogue Between Frederick Ruysch and His Mummies" by Giacomo Leopardi (1827)

[oposszum]

Fetus of about two months in the hand of a child, decorated with a lace cuff

[phantomleaves]

In the writings of Ruysch and the many poems that visitors wrote in praise of his cabinet, the complexity of the design of the human body was often stressed by comparisons to works made by man. For example, Ruysch described a handkerchief into which one of the crying foetuses wept over its short life as ‘a very thin membrane, saturated with countless tiny, red-coloured arteries, of which the serpentine course amusingly represents an actual embroidery’. The handkerchief reminded Ruysch of Psalm 139, which describes how God wrought the human body as a piece of embroidery in the depths of the earth.

Bert van de Roemer, “Anatomy Embellished in the Cabinet of Frederick Ruysch”, Death: A Graveside Companion edited by Joanna Ebenstein

[countryimages]

Anatomy Lesson by Frederick Ruysch

[mysterious-secret-garden]

Frederick Ruysch, Tableau of injected vessel.

[thephilosopheroftheboudoir]

Frederick Ruysch

[magictransistor]

Frederick Ruysch, Thesaurus animalium primus, 1710.

[beckerrarebooks]

Tableaux from the morbid, strange, and beautiful world of Frederick Ruysch, Dutch anatomist extraordinaire.

Frederick Ruysch.  Thesaurus anatomicus primus -decimus.  Amstelaedami: Apud Joannem Wolters, 1701-16.