Calves' heads and brains, or, A phrenological lecture [graphic]
Found In:
Lewis Walpole Library > Calves' heads and brains, or, A phrenological lecture [graphic]
Description
- Title
- Calves' heads and brains, or, A phrenological lecture [graphic]
- Alternative Title
- Phrenological lecture
- Creator
- Alken, Henry Thomas, 1784-1851, printmaker
- Published / Created
- [September 1826]
- Publication Place
- London
- Publisher
- Published Sepr. 1826 for the artist at St. Peters alley Corn Hill
- Abstract
-
"A phrenologist, ugly and dandified, standing behind a table, lectures to an informally grouped and stupid-looking audience; he holds his naturalistic brown wig, revealing a bald head covered with reddened protuberances. His Concluding Address is engraved in the lower margin: Ladies and Gentlemen Having thus concluded the hundred and thirty ninth article, under the Head or Section of Propensities: I shall take my leave until the next lecture, by clearly elucidating in my own person an instance of Due Proportion of Faculties: Talkativeness with Gulling, standing First: and further beg to testify, beyond all doubt, . . . that on the Craniums of this highly gifted and scientific Audience, the Organ of Implicit faith Under Evident Contradictions, Stands beautifully develop'd to a Surprising and Prominent degree Dear Ladies Worthy Gentlemen; adieu. Nearest the lecturer is a family party: anxious wife, amused husband, and small boy with a head abnormally protuberant at the back. Two bald men anxiously feel their bumps; an agitated woman presses her forehead. A man inspects a skull. On the lecturer's table, with one of Gall's plaster heads mapped out in numbered compartments, are writing materials and books, two with titles: Treatise on Elementary and Logic. Portrait busts, all bald, stand on the floor; busts illustrating different propensities decorate the room. Two are placed conspicuously on the floor in front of the table, Dr. [sic] Ville [see British Museum Satires No. 15157] and Gall. Others are of Spurzhim [sic], Scott, Shakespeare, W. Clive, and Tremaine. Two of a group of skulls are inscribed Thirtell [Thurtell, the murderer, executed 1824] and Pollard. The busts featuring character (with appropriate expressions) are Gazing Faculty, Slyness, Pride, Sleepiness, Consequence. The book-case behind the lecturer contains, besides books, a skull and a large jar of coloured liquid inscribed Gall, it stands on a large book, Opinions on Men and things; beside this are Lock on Understanding and Aristotle (propped by a skull). The other books with titles are Moore, Lavater [two volumes], Lectures on Nothing [? Outinian Lectures, see British Museum Satires No. 14773]; a rolled document, Doctrino Particularum, lies on two large books: Self Knowledge and Commentana Critica. Treatise on Magic, Harriette Wilson [see British Museum Satires No. 14828, &c], Duty of Man, Mackenzie ['Man of Feeling'], Treatise on Doubt, Philosophers Stone, Combe [two volumes], Treatise on Gold Making, Bells Brain [two volumes, 'New Idea of the Anatomy of the Brain', 1811]. On the wall are three pictures: Bumps, two little boys boxing with huge spherical gloves; Life's a Bumper, a fat 'cit' toping in an arm-chair; Tony Lumpkin, who cracks a whip, and shouts as in Goldsmith's play. Below these are pinned up a pictorial advertisement and three prints. The first is headed by a human eye and the inscription, Sold by Royal Patent Phrenological Hats Adapted to Every Protuberance of Faculty or Organ Yet Discovered, above a cluster of misshapen hats and a little man wearing such a hat; below: To be Had [in] Caster . . . Two prints illustrate bust portraits: Abstraction and Suspicion. The third, Prying, is a print of Paul Pry, see British Museum Satires No. 15138."--British Museum online catalogue
- Description
-
Title from text above image.
Atrributed to Henry Thomas Alken in the British Museum online catalogue, registration no.: 1895,0617.455.
Text below image begins: Concluding address: Ladies and gentlemen, having thus concluded the hundred and thirty ninth article ...
Sheet trimmed within plate mark on top edge.
Temporary local Medical Library subject terms: Lectures.
Mr. De Ville of the Strand identified by ms. note in a contemporary hand in lower left of sheet. - Provenance
- Leverhulme-Auchincloss, vol. xix, p. 19.
- Extent
- 1 print : sheet 24.9 x 35 cm
- Language
-
English
Collection Information
- Repository
- Lewis Walpole Library
- Call Number
- 826.09.00.01+
Subjects, Formats, And Genres
- Genre
-
Satires (Visual works) England 1826
Soft-ground etchings England London 1826
Annotations (Provenance) 19th century
Watermarks (Paper) - Material
- soft-ground etching ; and wove paper hand-colored.
- Resource Type
- still image
- Subject (Name)
- Combe, George, 1788-1858,
- Subject (Topic)
-
Phrenology
Public speaking
Audiences - Subjects
-
Combe, George, 1788-1858
Phrenology
Public speaking
Audiences
England > 1826
England > London > 1826
19th century
Access And Usage Rights
- Access
- Public
- Rights
- The use of this image may be subject to the copyright law of the United States (Title 17, United States Code) or to site license or other rights management terms and conditions. The person using the image is liable for any infringement.
Identifiers
- Orbis Record
- 9549495
- Object ID (OID)
- 11128684