William Hunter and the Anatomy of the Modern Museum

Campbell, Mungo; Flis, Nathan; Sánchez-Jáuregui, María Dolores

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Description: William Hunter and the Anatomy of the Modern Museum

BOOKWilliam Hunter and the Anatomy of the Modern Museum

Mungo Campbell (Editor), Nathan Flis (Editor), María Dolores Sánchez-Jáuregui (Editor)

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00250

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-21193

William Hunter and the Anatomy of the Modern Museum accompanies a groundbreaking exhibition organized by the Hunterian at the University of Glasgow, in collaboration with the Yale Center for British Art, to celebrate the 2018 tercentenary of The Hunterian’s founder, Dr. William Hunter (1718–1783). This publication is the first in 150 years to assess the contribution made by Hunter, the Scottish-born obstetrician, anatomist, and collector, to the development of the modern museum as a public institution.

Essays examine how Hunter gathered his collection to be used as a source of knowledge and instruction, encompassing outstanding paintings and works on paper, coins and medals, and anatomical and zoological specimens. Hunter also possessed ethnographic artifacts from Spain, the Middle East, China, and the South Pacific, and was an avid collector of medieval manuscripts and incunabula; these were all located within one of the most important “working” libraries of eighteenth-century London.

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Author

Mungo Campbell (Editor), Nathan Flis (Editor), María Dolores Sánchez-Jáuregui (Editor)

PublisherYale Center for British Art

Print publication date November 2018 (in print)

Print ISBN 9780300236651

EISBN 9780300260762

Illustrations 389

Print Status in print

Publisher (in print)

WorldCat

Google Books

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List of illustrations

The Hunterian Museum, Glasgow
Will and codicils
William Hunter’s home and anatomy school in 16 Great Windmill Street, London
Drawing of buildings for William Hunter’s collections, 16 Great Windmill Street, detail
Francis Hutcheson
Alexander Monro of Auchenbowie (Primus), 1697–1767
Model of the Hunterian Museum
Ground floor of proposed Hunterian Museum, Glasgow
First floor of proposed Hunterian Museum, Glasgow
Lower floor of proposed Hunterian Museum, Glasgow
Hunterian Library bookplate
Interior of the Hunterian Museum with busts of Gavin Hamilton and Thomas Campbell
Advertisement for James Douglas’s public course on human and comparative anatomy
Drawings of the crocus
My turn today, yours tomorrow (Hodie Mihi, Cras Tibi)
Three views of a deformed femur lent by George Rolfe
Albinus’s cabinet of anatomical preparations at the University of Leiden
A chick in the egg shown in cross section
Skeleton of a frog
Copulating frogs
Rattlesnake
The Armadillo or the hog in armour from South America
The beak of a phoenicopterus, or flamingo
Bones of the spine, ribs, vertebrae, sacrum, and coccyx
Bones of the spine, ribs, vertebrae, sacrum, and coccyx
Scapula bones
Bones of the sacrum and coccyx (Table 15)
The bones of the shoulder
A Skeleton in Profile as Death or Time
The cranium sectioned (recto)
The skull sectioned (verso)
Presentation cup
William Hunter’s Covent Garden house in The North-east Corner of Covent Garden Piazza
William Hunter
Richard Mead
Richard Mead
Portrait of an Unidentified Gentleman
Dr. William Harvey
Walter Charleton
John Radcliffe
Sir Isaac Newton
Statue of John Radcliffe by John Michael Rysbrack, in the Radcliffe Camera
Frank Nicholls
Bookplate of The College of Physicians of Philadelphia
William Hunter’s personal device, a hunter’s horn, stamped in gold leaf on the binding of Homer
The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman
Crowns, Mitres, Maces ETC (subscription ticket for Four Prints of an Election)
William Hunter’s catalogue of his medical library, pp. 49–50
William Hunter’s Common Catalogue of his library (nonmedical), p. 20
William Hunter’s Aldine edition of Plato: Aldus Manutius’s printer’s mark from title-page
William Hunter’s Aldine edition of Plato: binding and scale
The origin and progress of Printing Greek, in the 15th Century
William Hunter’s copy of Samuel Johnson, A Dictionary of the English Language
Definition of library
List of Books Lent, verso 4, recto 5
William Hunter’s copy of James Douglas, Bibliographiae anatomicae specimen
One of William Hunter’s copies of Geoffrey Chaucer, The Boke of the Tales of Canterburie
Two Introductory Lectures
Proof after letters for plate VI in William Hunter, The Anatomy of the Human Gravid Uterus
The child in the womb in its natural situation
The placenta at full time
The decidua covering the outer surface
Diagram of the anatomy of pregnancy
Figure revealing the anatomy of the uterus
Table XV in William Smellie, A Sett of Anatomical Tables with Explanations, and an Abridgment, of the Practice of Midwifery
Third table in Charles Nicholas Jenty, The Demonstrations of a Pregnant Uterus of a Woman at Her Full Time
Drawing for plate II in William Hunter, The Anatomy of the Human Gravid Uterus
The uterus at the end of the ninth month of pregnancy
The uterus at the end of the ninth month of pregnancy, the anterior wall of the pelvis removed
Plate I in William Hunter, The Anatomy of the Human Gravid Uterus
Proof after letters for plate IV in William Hunter, The Anatomy of the Human Gravid Uterus
Corpus luteum of pregnancy at term
Plate XV, in William Hunter, The Anatomy of the Human Gravid Uterus, detail: fig. V (ovary of pregnant subject, showing the corpus luteum)
Plate XXVI in William Hunter, The Anatomy of the Human Gravid Uterus, detail: fig. IV
Proof after letters for plate II in William Hunter, The Anatomy of the Human Gravid Uterus
Plate XXXIV in William Hunter, The Anatomy of the Human Gravid Uterus, detail: fig. I
The uterus at the end of the ninth month of pregnancy, the anterior wall of the pelvis removed, detail
Plate IV in William Hunter, The Anatomy of the Human Gravid Uterus, detail
Johann Christian Fabricius
Entomologia systematica emendata et aucta
Admission ticket to the British Museum
Guillaume-Antoine Olivier
Entomologie, ou Histoire naturelle des insectes
Illustrations of Natural History
Rudolf Erich Raspe
Mummy
A Critical Essay on Oil-Painting
Pieter Camper
Natuurkundige verhandelingen over den orang-outang; en eenige andere aapsoorten; over den rhinoceros met den dubbelen horen; en over het rendier
Justus Christian Loder
Beschreibung der physiologischen und pathologischen Präparate welche in der Sammlung des Herrn Hofrath Loder zu Jena enthalten sind
Table I, from William Hunter's Bemerkungen über die bey schweren Geburten empfohlene Zertheilung der Schaambeine
Table II, from William Hunter's Bemerkungen über die bey schweren Geburten empfohlene Zertheilung der Schaambeine
Index praeparatorum aliarumque rerum ad anatomiam spectantium, que in museo caesareae universitatis Mosquensis servantur
Samuel Thomas Sömmerring
A View of Matavai Bay in the Island of Otaheite (Tahiti)
Omai, a Polynesian
Tools &c from the South Sea Isles (flute, food pounder, chisel, adze, and sewing needle, from the Society Islands)
Portrait of a New Zealand Man
Various Instruments, & Utensils, of the Natives of Otaheite, & of the adjacent Islands
Various kinds of Instruments Utensils &c., of the Inhabitants of New Zealand, with some Ornaments &c., of the People of Terra del Fuego & New Holland
Dr. John Fothergill
Three paddles from New Zealand
War club
David Samwell
Architectural drawing for 16 Great Windmill Street, London
Northern and southern stellar hemispheres with explanatory text in Chinese
Plate LXXIV, for Encyclopaedia Britannica
Cyclopaedia: or, An Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences
Emperor Franz I Stephan with the Directors of His Collections
A Sketch for the Entombment
Entry on gold from William Hunter, Catalogue of Minerals
Lectures Anatomical and Chirurgical by Wm Hunter, Physician Extraordinary to Her Majesty, Professor of Anatomy to the Royal Academy and Fellow of the Royal and Antiquarian Societies
Catalogue of Anatomical Preparations
Preparations of the eye
Nummorum veterum populorum et urbium, qui in museo Gulielmi Hunter asservantur descriptio figuris illustrata
Engraved printing plate for plate 9, in Charles Combe, Nummorum veterum populorum et urbium ... descriptio
Essai d'un distribution généalogique des sciences et des arts principaux
L’estrif de fortune et vertu
William Hunter’s note
The Nilgai
Nyl-ghau (Nilgai)
Eye of the Neel Ghaw (Nilgai)
William Hunter
William Hunter
William Hunter, detail
Death–Mask of William Hunter
Dorothea Hunter, Mrs. James Baillie
Reverend James Baillie
Bothwell Castle
Letter to William Cullen concerning a Continental tour
Letter to William Cullen concerning a proposal to move his anatomy school to Glasgow
Memorandum regarding the establishment of a museum at the University of Glasgow
Architectural drawing for 16 Great Windmill Street, London
History of the Venereal Disease
Draft of letter to William Hunter on the death of David Hume
Will and codicils
Notarised transcript of William Hunter’s Scottish will
A Catalogue of Sundry Elegant Solid Gold Snuff-Boxes, of Rich Workmanship…
A Catalogue of Sundry Elegant Solid Gold Snuff-Boxes, of Rich Workmanship…
Obstetrical forceps
Draft of a concluding lecture on midwifery
Presentation cup
Certificate of attendance for William Hunter’s course of anatomical and chirurgical lectures
William Hunter’s Journal of Attendance on Her Majesty Queen Charlotte as Physician Extraordinary
Royal Academy Diploma
Lectures Anatomical and Chirurgical by Wm Hunter, Physician Extraordinary to Her Majesty, Professor of Anatomy to the Royal Academy and Fellow of the Royal and Antiquarian Societies
William Hunter Lecturing
Écorché figure
Écorché figure
Écorché figure
Écorché figure
Dr. William Hunter
De humani corporis fabrica
Écorché figure, holding aside sternum
Opera omnia anatomico-medico-chirurgico
Écorché figure
Human Pelvic Bone
Badly united fracture of the tibia and fibula at the junction of the lower and middle thirds
Fracture at the middle of the radius united with ankylosis to the ulna
Osteographia, or The Anatomy of the Bones
Study of a Child in Utero
Cunicularii or The Wise Men of Godliman in Consultation
Letter to James Douglas concerning the Rabbit Woman of Godalming
A Sett of Anatomical Tables with Explanations, and an Abridgement, of the Practice of Midwifery
The Analysis of Beauty: Plate I, A Statuary’s Yard
The Four Stages of Cruelty: The Reward of Cruelty
The Resurrection or an Internal View of the Museum in W-D-M-LL Street, on the last Day
Doctors Dissecting
The Anatomist Overtaken by the Watch ... Carrying off Miss W–in a Hamper
Catalogue of Anatomical Preparations
Observations, Anatomical and Physiological, Wherein Dr. Hunter’s Claim to Some Discoveries Is Examined
Testicle injected with mercury by the vas deferens
Facetted gall stones, from one case
Calculi
Preparation of the lung of a turtle
Preparation of the Lung of the Turtle
The arteries and veins of the intestines: ileum
The arteries of the intestine
Fetal part of the placentula of a cow
The sclerotic and choroid coats of the eye
The anterior chamber of the eye, the ciliary body, and the iris
The choroid and ciliary processes, and arteries of the iris
The arteries of the iris
The crystalline lens in situ
Eight teeth showing the parts of a tooth
Teeth in transverse section, showing the pulp cavities
Formation and growth of teeth
Severe lateral curvature of the spine
Cancellous end of a long bone
The lymphatics of the intestine: lacteals of a porpoise
Tuberculosis of the kidney
Tuberculosis of the kidney: hydronephrosis
Tuberculosis of the kidney and ureter: advanced
Tuberculosis of the kidney and ureter: very advanced
The arteries of the intestine
The arteries of the intestine
The arteries of the intestine
The uterus at the end of the ninth month of pregnancy
The uterus at the end of the ninth month of pregnancy, from right
The uterus at the end of the ninth month of pregnancy, from left
Drawing for plate II in William Hunter, The Anatomy of the Human Gravid Uterus
Proof after letters for plate II in William Hunter, The Anatomy of the Human Gravid Uterus
Drawing for plate III in William Hunter, The Anatomy of the Human Gravid Uterus
Proof after letters for plate III in William Hunter, The Anatomy of the Human Gravid Uterus
The uterus at the end of the ninth month of pregnancy, the anterior wall of the pelvis removed
Drawing for plate IV in William Hunter, The Anatomy of the Human Gravid Uterus
Proof after letters for plate IV in William Hunter, The Anatomy of the Human Gravid Uterus
The child in the womb in its natural situation
Drawing for plate VI in William Hunter, The Anatomy of the Human Gravid Uterus
Proof for plate VI in William Hunter, The Anatomy of the Human Gravid Uterus
Proof after letters for plate VI in William Hunter, The Anatomy of the Human Gravid Uterus
Drawing for plate XIII in William Hunter, The Anatomy of the Human Gravid Uterus
Drawing for plate XVI in William Hunter, The Anatomy of the Human Gravid Uterus
Drawing for plate XVII in William Hunter, The Anatomy of the Human Gravid Uterus
Drawing for plate XXI in William Hunter, The Anatomy of the Human Gravid Uterus
First-state proof before letters for plate XXI in William Hunter, The Anatomy of the Human Gravid Uterus
Proof after letters for plate XXI in William Hunter, The Anatomy of the Human Gravid Uterus
Uterus and ovum in the fourth month
Drawing for plate XXXI, fig. II, in William Hunter, The Anatomy of the Human Gravid Uterus
Proof for plate XXXI, detail, fig. II, in William Hunter, The Anatomy of the Human Gravid Uterus
Three drawings for plate XXXIV, figs. I–III, in William Hunter, The Anatomy of the Human Gravid Uterus
Annotated proof before letters for plate XXXIV in William Hunter, The Anatomy of the Human Gravid Uterus
Proof after letters for plate XXXIV in William Hunter, The Anatomy of the Human Gravid Uterus
Attitude of the fetus, breach presentation, first position, cord around neck, from right
Attitude of the fetus, breach presentation, first position, cord around neck
Attitude of the fetus, breach presentation, first position, cord around neck, from right
Attitude of the fetus, breach presentation, first position, cord around neck
Letter to William Hunter
The Anatomy of the Human Gravid Uterus Exhibited in Figures (Anatomia uteri humani gravidi tabulis illustrata)
Plate I in William Hunter, The Anatomy of the Human Gravid Uterus
Sir Isaac Newton
Dr. William Harvey
Landscape in Holland
Still Life with Dead Game
Head of an Old Man
Peasant Family at a Well (La marchande de légume)
A Sketch for the Entombment
A Lady Taking Tea (Une dame qui prend du thé )
The Scullery Maid
The Cellar Boy (Le garcon cabaretier)
Lady Maynard
Isabella, Countess of Hertford
The Hunting of Actaeon by Diana
Common Catalogue
List of Books Lent
Tēs tou Homērou Iliados ho tomos proteros
Hunterian Psalter
Speculum phlebotomiae and Practica chirurgiae
The Romaunt of the Rose
The Romaunt of the Rose
Vita Christi
Apocalypse
Quattuor Evangelia
al-Qur’ān (sūras 1–3)
Idolum Tangutanum
Letter to William Hunter
Taqwīm al-abdān fī tadbīr al-insān
Galeni opera ex nona Iuntarum editione
L’estrif de fortune et vertu
William Hunter’s note
Historie del S. D. Fernando Colombo; nelle quali s’ha particolare, & vera relatione della vita, & de’ fatti dell’Ammiraglio D. Christoforo Columbo, suo padre
Naturalis historia
Ars moriendi
De officiis
William Hunter’s note
El ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quixote de la Mancha
Hē tou Homērou Ilias
The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman
De naturali hominum socialitate
Philosophiae naturalis principia mathematica
Philosophiae naturalis principia mathematica, editio secunda auctior et emendatior
Philosophiae naturalis principia mathematica, editio tertia aucta et emendata
Encyclopédie, ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers
Poissons, ecrevisses et crabes
An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
Essays and Treatises on Several Subjects
Trattato della pittura di Lionardo da Vinci, novamente dato in luce, con la vita dell’istesso autore, scritta da Raffaelle Du Fresne. Si sono agiunti i tre libri dellapittura, et il trattato della statua di Leon Battista Alberti, con la vita del medesimo
Campi Phlegraei: Observations on the Volcanos of the Two Sicilies as They Have Been Communicated to the Royal Society of London
Monumenti antichi inediti, spiegati ed illustrate
John Evelyn
Portraits de Nanteuil
A Catalogue of the Genuine and Entire Collection of Valuable Gems, Bronzes, Marble and Other Busts and Antiquities, of the late Doctor Mead
Dr. Richard Mead
William Cullen
Combat with Lions
Long Landscape with a Bridge
The Birth of Venus
Kunyu Quantu, cartouches
Kunyu Quantu, eastern hemisphere
Kunyu Quantu, western hemisphere
Stater of Lachares
Aurei, double aureus, and solidi of the Roman Emperors
Aurei, double aureus, and solidi of the Roman Emperors
Aurei, double aureus, and solidi of the Roman Emperors
Aurei, double aureus, and solidi of the Roman Emperors
Noble of David II
Koban
Koban
Koban
Dinaras of the Gupta Kings
John VIII Palaeologos
Professor Francis Hutcheson
Nummorum veterum populorum et urbium, qui in museo Gulielmi Hunter asservantur, descriptio figuris illustrata
Engraved printing plate for plate 9, in Charles Combe, Nummorum veterum populorum et urbium ... descriptio
A Voyage Towards the South Pole, and Round the World Performed in Her Majesty’s Ships the Resolution and Adventure, in the Years 1772, 1773, 1774, and 1775
Knife (maripi)
Hand club (patu paraoa)
Two-Handed weapon (taiaha)
Paddle (hoe)
Cloak (kaitaka)
Drum
Decorated water gourd (ipu pawehe)
Barkcloth (kapa)
Pair of bracelets (kupe’e ho’okalakala)
Basket (kato mosi kaka)
Headrest (kali hahapo)
Club (apa’apai )
Gorget (taumi )
Adze (to‘i )
Dance paddle (rapa)
Hand club
Bird rattle (kuhmī n)
Model kayak (baidarka)
Harpoon head
Fish-Hook
Leister head
Hunter Amber Goblet
Parade shield
Horned screamer
Letter to William Hunter
Directions for Bringing over Seeds and Plants, from the East-Indies and Other Distant Countries
The Nilgai
Eye of the Neel Ghaw (Nilgai)
Nyl-ghau (Nilgai)
The Moose
Zebra
A Blackbuck
The Anatomy of the Horse ... In Eighteen Tables, All Done from Nature
Two-horned rhinoceros, left profile
Trustee Catalogue of the Shells
Historiae Conchyliorum
Laciniate conch shell
Pacific volute shell
Glory of the Seas cone shell
Two leafy hornmouth shells
Two golden cowrie shells
Goldmouth turban shell
Four cone shells
Fothergill’s barnacle
Thorny oyster shell, with Serpula tube-worms
Thorny oyster shell, with Noah’s Ark shell
The Natural History of Many Curious and Uncommon Zoophytes, Collected from Various Parts of the Globe
Madrepora aspera, now Echinophyllia aspera
Madrepora phrygia, now Leptoria phrygia
Madrepora abdita, now Favites abdita
Madrepora annularis, now Orbicella annularis
Madrepora angulosa, now Mussa angulosa
Two Cuban painted land snails
Sea-lily
Trustee Catalogue of Insects
Illustrations of Natural History
Goliath beetle
Drawer of jewel beetles
Drawer of bees
Eastern black swallowtail butterfly
Madagascan pipevine swallowtail butterfly, dorsal
Madagascan pipevine swallowtail butterfly, ventral
Zebra longwing butterfly
Blue tiger butterfly
Rhetenor blue morpho butterfly
Mango longhorn beetle
Longhorn beetle
Clearwing swallowtail butterfly (female)
Clearwing swallowtail butterfly (male)
Neptune beetle
Systema naturae
Chalcopyrite, variety blister ore
Copper, intergrown with white quartz
Cassiterite crystals, with topaz crystals and fluorite, on quartz; and two cassiterite specimens
Quartz, variety chalcedony
Acanthite crystal and silver bead
A New Method to Assaying Copper Ores
Invoice for minerals
Experiments Made in Order to Ascertain the Nature of Some Mineral Substances
Blue hemimorphite
Sulphur
Gold, variety electrum, in brownish quartz-rich rock
Mastodon tusk
Mastodon tooth

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Contents

Mungo Campbell (Editor), Nathan Flis (Editor), María Dolores Sánchez-Jáuregui (Editor)

William Hunter and the Anatomy of the Modern Museum

Contents

Author

Mungo Campbell (Editor), Nathan Flis (Editor), María Dolores Sánchez-Jáuregui (Editor)

PublisherYale Center for British Art

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-21194

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Directors’ Foreword

Amy Meyers and Steph Scholten

William Hunter and the Anatomy of the Modern Museum

~When the Royal Academy of Arts in London was founded in 1768, exactly two hundred and fifty years ago, Dr William Hunter (1718–1783) became its first professor of anatomy. The exhibition William Hunter and the Anatomy of the Modern Museum, together with this publication, marks another anniversary: the tercentenary of Hunter’s birth. The...

Author

Amy Meyers and Steph Scholten

PublisherYale Center for British Art

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-21195

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Acknowledgements

Mungo Campbell (Editor), Nathan Flis (Editor), María Dolores Sánchez-Jáuregui (Editor)

William Hunter and the Anatomy of the Modern Museum

~William Hunter and the Anatomy of the Modern Museum has been a complex undertaking requiring the sustained enthusiasm, expertise, and engagement of many colleagues, friends, and supporters on both sides of the Atlantic for more than a decade. Although there are inevitably those who cannot be thanked individually, we extend our deepest gratitude to all who have...

Author

Mungo Campbell (Editor), Nathan Flis (Editor), María Dolores Sánchez-Jáuregui (Editor)

PublisherYale Center for British Art

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-21196

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Contributors’ Biographies

Mungo Campbell (Editor), Nathan Flis (Editor), María Dolores Sánchez-Jáuregui (Editor)

William Hunter and the Anatomy of the Modern Museum

Contributors’ Biographies

Author

Mungo Campbell (Editor), Nathan Flis (Editor), María Dolores Sánchez-Jáuregui (Editor)

PublisherYale Center for British Art

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-21197

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William Hunter: A Chronology

Seren Nolan

William Hunter and the Anatomy of the Modern Museum

~

Author

Seren Nolan

PublisherYale Center for British Art

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00250.001

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-21198

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Part I: Physician, Anatomist, Collector

Mungo Campbell (Editor), Nathan Flis (Editor), María Dolores Sánchez-Jáuregui (Editor)

William Hunter and the Anatomy of the Modern Museum

Part I

Author

Mungo Campbell (Editor), Nathan Flis (Editor), María Dolores Sánchez-Jáuregui (Editor)

PublisherYale Center for British Art

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-21199

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William Hunter and the Anatomy of the Modern Museum: An Introduction

Mungo Campbell

William Hunter and the Anatomy of the Modern Museum

The Hunterian Museum opened its doors to the visiting public at the University of Glasgow in 1807, presenting its treasures in a purpose-built Neoclassical temple designed by the Scottish architect William Stark (1770–1813) (fig. 1). It was the first institution of its kind in Scotland and had been founded, and its construction funded, through the bequest of an...

Author

Mungo Campbell

PublisherYale Center for British Art

Related print edition pages: pp.25-47

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00250.002

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-21200

Chapter subject tags:Hunter, William, 1718-1783Hunterian Museum (University of Glasgow)Human anatomyCollection and preservationEmpiricism

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Skeletons in Hunter’s Closet: James Douglas and the Fashioning of William Hunter

Nathan Flis

William Hunter and the Anatomy of the Modern Museum

It might be said that William Hunter preserved the remains of his teacher and mentor James Douglas, MD, FRS (1675–1742), a fellow Scot who served as Physician Extraordinary to Queen Caroline. While Douglas’s body was interred at the church of St Andrew’s, Holborn, the rest of his physical legacy is held mainly among Hunter’s collections at the University of Glasgow, which reveal that the protégé kept an astonishing number of the master’s possessions: a profusion of papers,The Douglas papers are now part of the Archives and Special Collections at the University of Glasgow Library. They first came to light in 1908, when they were housed in the Blackburn Cabinet at the Hunterian Museum; see John Young and P. H. Aitken, A Catalogue of the MSS in the Library of the Hunterian Museum in the University of Glasgow (Glasgow: MacLehose & Sons, 1908). The papers were subsequently catalogued by K. Bryn Thomas in James Douglas of the Pouch and His Pupil William Hunter (London: Pitman Medical Publish

Author

Nathan Flis

PublisherYale Center for British Art

Related print edition pages: pp.49-71

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00250.003

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-21201

Chapter subject tags:Douglas, James, 1675-1742ApprenticesHuman anatomy

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A Motto for a Museum: William Hunter’s Inheritance from Richard Mead

Craig Ashley Hanson

William Hunter and the Anatomy of the Modern Museum

William Hunter, the accomplished physician and anatomist, left two wills, one English and one Scottish, in which he, respectively, bequeathed his vast, varied collections in London to the University of Glasgow and designated funds for the building of a museum...

Author

Craig Ashley Hanson

PublisherYale Center for British Art

Related print edition pages: pp.73-89

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00250.004

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-21202

Chapter subject tags:Presentation pieces (Gifts)Mead, Richard, 1673-1754Art--Collectors and collecting

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Conceptions of Knowledge in William Hunter’s Library

Matthew Sangster

William Hunter and the Anatomy of the Modern Museum

As systems of knowledge and value have shifted over the two hundred years since William Hunter’s collection became a public museum, his varied acquisitions have waxed and waned in their perceived significance. This is particularly true of his library of over ten thousand printed volumes and about six hundred and...

Author

Matthew Sangster

PublisherYale Center for British Art

Related print edition pages: pp.91-107

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00250.005

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-21203

Chapter subject tags:Private librariesScientific literatureHuman anatomy--Study and teachingLectures and lecturing

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Scalpel to Burin: A Material History of William Hunter’s Anatomy of the Human Gravid Uterus

Meredith Gamer

William Hunter and the Anatomy of the Modern Museum

Among historians of art and medicine alike, William Hunter’s Anatomy of the Human Gravid Uterus Exhibited in Figures (1774) is best known for its engraved plates. Thirty-four in all, these depict the pregnant human womb at various stages of development, and in progressive...

Author

Meredith Gamer

PublisherYale Center for British Art

Related print edition pages: pp.109-125

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00250.006

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-21204

Chapter subject tags:Human dissectionPlaster casts

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“Extolled by Foreigners”: William Hunter’s Collection and the Development of Science and Medicine in Eighteenth-Century Europe

Dominik Hünniger

William Hunter and the Anatomy of the Modern Museum

As Dr. W. Hunter’s Museum is so much visited and extolled by Foreigners, I am the more surprised that it hath not been more taken Notice of by English Writers”.Anon., “To the Printer of the St. J....

Author

Dominik Hünniger

PublisherYale Center for British Art

Related print edition pages: pp.127-141

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00250.007

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-21205

Chapter subject tags:Natural history collectionsEntomologyCollection and preservationHuman anatomy--Study and teaching

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“A great collection of curiosities from the South Sea Islands”: William Hunter’s Ethnography

Nicholas Thomas

William Hunter and the Anatomy of the Modern Museum

The voyages of Captain James Cook (1728–1779) figure paradoxically in British and European history. Cook is commonly regarded as the greatest sea explorer of all time and is the subject of a steady stream of popular biographies and television documentaries. His expeditions are prominently featured in maritime...

Author

Nicholas Thomas

PublisherYale Center for British Art

Related print edition pages: pp.143-157

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00250.008

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-21206

Chapter subject tags:Cook, James, 1728-1780OceaniaIndigenous peoples

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Anatomical Jars and Butterflies: Curating Knowledge in William Hunter’s Museum

María Dolores Sánchez-Jáuregui

William Hunter and the Anatomy of the Modern Museum

This essay explores the nature of William Hunter’s museum and seeks to identify the underlying concepts that connect together the diverse elements of his extensive collections. Recovering these is no easy task, since the museum encompasses academic disciplines that are now considered separate, as well as a multiplicity of artefacts and objects with distinct histories. Despite this apparent...

Author

María Dolores Sánchez-Jáuregui

PublisherYale Center for British Art

Related print edition pages: pp.159-175

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00250.009

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-21207

Chapter subject tags:Anatomical museumsEnlightenmentEncyclopedias and dictionariesNatural history--Classification

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Free

Part II: Catalogue of the Exhibition

Mungo Campbell (Editor), Nathan Flis (Editor), María Dolores Sánchez-Jáuregui (Editor)

William Hunter and the Anatomy of the Modern Museum

Part II

Author

Mungo Campbell (Editor), Nathan Flis (Editor), María Dolores Sánchez-Jáuregui (Editor)

PublisherYale Center for British Art

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-21208

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Portraits and Papers

Mungo Campbell

William Hunter and the Anatomy of the Modern Museum

Occasional clues to the character and personality of William Hunter may be extracted from the objects in his collections, when they are interrogated with their owner in mind: the networks through which a given item was acquired may reveal Hunter’s patterns of professional or business relationships. The nature of a particular area of the collection, or the decision to concentrate on one...

Author

Mungo Campbell

PublisherYale Center for British Art

Related print edition pages: pp.178-195

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00250.010

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-21209

Chapter subject tags:Portrait painting, BritishAnatomical museumsAuction houses

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Pedagogy and Professional Practice

Mungo Campbell

William Hunter and the Anatomy of the Modern Museum

William Hunter enjoyed an international reputation as a teacher. By the late 1760s, his pedagogic practice extended from practical instruction in dissection for students of medicine—conducted by this time in the purpose-built premises at Great Windmill Street designed for him by Robert Mylne (see cat. 10)—to the elucidation of human anatomy and its...

Author

Mungo Campbell

PublisherYale Center for British Art

Related print edition pages: pp.196-209

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00250.011

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-21210

Chapter subject tags:Human anatomy--Study and teachingPresentation pieces (Gifts)ChildbirthLectures and lecturingHuman anatomy--Models

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Anatomical Illustration and the Practice of Anatomy

Peter Black

William Hunter and the Anatomy of the Modern Museum

Drawing and anatomy went closely together in the eighteenth century, when depicting the configuration of bodily parts and systems accurately was essential to expanding medical and scientific knowledge. William Hunter’s involvement with anatomical drawing began before his arrival in London in 1740. He would already have seen drawings used as visual aids in the lectures he attended in...

Author

Peter Black

PublisherYale Center for British Art

Related print edition pages: pp.210-227

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00250.012

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-21211

Chapter subject tags:Scientific illustrationAnatomical specimensChildbirthHuman dissection

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Anatomical Preparations

Maggie Reilly and Stuart McDonald

William Hunter and the Anatomy of the Modern Museum

William Hunter’s anatomical and pathological collection numbers more than three thousand specimens, making it one of the outstanding assemblages of its kind in the world. Housed in the Museum of Anatomy at the University of Glasgow (which also holds post-Hunter materials), the Hunter specimens—in most cases, still in their eighteenth-century glass jars—remain an...

Author

Maggie Reilly and Stuart McDonald

PublisherYale Center for British Art

Related print edition pages: pp.228-247

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00250.013

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-21212

Chapter subject tags:Anatomical specimensZoological specimens--Collection and preservationEye--AnatomyTeeth--AnatomyDiseases

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The Anatomy of the Human Gravid Uterus

Mungo Campbell (Editor), Nathan Flis (Editor), María Dolores Sánchez-Jáuregui (Editor)

William Hunter and the Anatomy of the Modern Museum

William Hunter commenced his study of the anatomy of the human gravid uterus in the winter of 1750–51, a project that has continued to define his medical reputation to the present day. He had arrived in London in 1740 to apprentice himself to William Smellie (1697–1763) and acquire the obstetric skills required of a successful provincial doctor. Though Smellie eventually...

Author

Mungo Campbell (Editor), Nathan Flis (Editor), María Dolores Sánchez-Jáuregui (Editor)

PublisherYale Center for British Art

Related print edition pages: pp.248-273

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00250.014

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-21213

Chapter subject tags:Human anatomyPlaster castsScientific illustrationHuman dissection

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Pictures

Peter Black and Anne Dulau Beveridge

William Hunter and the Anatomy of the Modern Museum

In the autumn of 1771, in a lecture to students at the Royal Academy of Arts, William Hunter demonstrated his awareness of the then-inflated prices of paintings in this comment on the art market: “A general taste for the Arts prevails; the best works of Artists are sought for...

Author

Peter Black and Anne Dulau Beveridge

PublisherYale Center for British Art

Related print edition pages: pp.274-287

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00250.015

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-21214

Chapter subject tags:Art--Collectors and collectingPortrait paintingGenre paintingPainting, BaroqueLandscape painting

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The Library

Michelle Craig

William Hunter and the Anatomy of the Modern Museum

William Hunter’s library is one of the largest private libraries of the eighteenth century to survive intact, consisting of about ten thousand printed books and six hundred and fifty manuscripts. It is now...

Author

Michelle Craig

PublisherYale Center for British Art

Related print edition pages: pp.288-323

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00250.016

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-21215

Chapter subject tags:Private librariesIllumination of books and manuscriptsScientific literatureClassical literature

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Coins and Medals

Donal Bateson

William Hunter and the Anatomy of the Modern Museum

By the eighteenth century the virtual royal and aristocratic monopoly on accumulating valuable art and artefacts was giving way to the fresh pursuit of this activity by the rising professional classes, including lawyers, doctors, academics, and merchants. In no field was this better exemplified than in the formation of coin cabinets, among which, by the 1770s, that assembled by William Hunter...

Author

Donal Bateson

PublisherYale Center for British Art

Related print edition pages: pp.324-335

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00250.017

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-21216

Chapter subject tags:Coins--Collectors and collectingNumismatics, RomanGoldwork--JapanMedals

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Pacific and Other “Curiosities”

Mungo Campbell

William Hunter and the Anatomy of the Modern Museum

From the preparations and casts produced by William Hunter in his investigation of the anatomy of the human gravid uterus, through the determined amassing of one of the eighteenth century’s greatest collections of numismatics, to his library, in which could be found printed books and manuscripts produced in every corner of...

Author

Mungo Campbell

PublisherYale Center for British Art

Related print edition pages: pp.336-353

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00250.018

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-21217

Chapter subject tags:Maori (New Zealand people)Art, PolynesianArt, TonganYupik Eskimos

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Shells, Corals, Birds, Insects, and Other Preserved Animals

Maggie Reilly and Jeanne Robinson

William Hunter and the Anatomy of the Modern Museum

William Hunter owned an impressively large number of natural history specimens, originating among both living things (plants and animals) and non-living (see “Ores and Fossils”, in this volume, pp. 398–409). His herbarium (plants) and his collections of insects, shells, and other invertebrates encompassed thousands of items, while he had many hundreds of vertebrate specimens.

Author

Maggie Reilly and Jeanne Robinson

PublisherYale Center for British Art

Related print edition pages: pp.354-397

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00250.019

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-21218

Chapter subject tags:Natural history in artShells--Collection and preservationInsects--Collection and preservation

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Ores and Fossils

John Faithfull and Neil Clark

William Hunter and the Anatomy of the Modern Museum

About 1764–65, Elizabeth, Lady St Aubyn, sent a collection of mineral specimens from Cornwall to London as a gift to William Hunter.The St Aubyns,...

Author

John Faithfull and Neil Clark

PublisherYale Center for British Art

Related print edition pages: pp.398-409

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00250.020

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-21219

Chapter subject tags:Fossils--Collection and preservationPrehistoric animals

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