Morbid Curiosities: Collections of the Uncommon and the Bizarre

Beneath the original Venetian glass and rosewood case at La Specola in Florence lies Clemente Susini’s Anatomical Venus (c. 1790), a perfect object whose luxuriously bizarre existence challenges belief. It – or, better, she – was conceived of as a means to teach human anatomy without need for constant dissection, which was messy, ethically fraught […]

Russian Criminal Tattoo Police Files Volume I features more than 180 photographs of Russian criminal tattoos and official police papers from the collection of Arkady Bronnikov, regarded as Russia’s foremost authority on criminal tattoo iconography. From the mid-1960s to the late 1980s, Bronnikov worked as a senior expert in criminalistics at the USSR Ministry of […]

The Sick Rose is a beautifully gruesome and strangely fascinating visual tour through disease in an age before colour photography. This stunning volume, combining detailed illustrations of afflicted patients from some of…..

Crucial Interventions is a startling look at the golden age of surgery through gruesome yet beautiful technical illustrations and paintings from the Wellcome Collection, written by the bestselling author of The Sick Rose . Chaptered from head to toe, this compelling volume interweaves graphic illustrations of surgical techniques and instruments from rare, nineteenth-century textbooks with engrossing and enlightening […]