ALBINUS, Bernard Siegfried (1697-1770) - photo 1
ALBINUS, Bernard Siegfried (1697-1770) - photo 2
ALBINUS, Bernard Siegfried (1697-1770) - photo 3
ALBINUS, Bernard Siegfried (1697-1770) - photo 4
ALBINUS, Bernard Siegfried (1697-1770) - photo 5

ALBINUS, Bernard Siegfried (1697-1770)

Lot 189
10.12.2025 12:00UTC +00:00
Classic
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CHRISTIE'S
AuctioneerCHRISTIE'S
Event locationUnited Kingdom, London
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ID 1514386
Lot 189 | ALBINUS, Bernard Siegfried (1697-1770)
Estimate value
£ 8 000 – 12 000
ALBINUS, Bernard Siegfried (1697-1770)
Tabulae sceleti et musculorum corporis humani. Leiden: Johan and Herman Verbeek, 1747. [Bound with:] – Tabulae VII uteri mulieris gravidae cum iam parturiret mortuae. Leiden: Johan and Herman Verbeek, 1748.
First edition of Albinus’ famous atlas of anatomical plates which ‘established a new standard in anatomical illustration, and remain unsurpassed for their artistic beauty and scientific accuracy’ (Garrison-Morton). ‘Among the most artistically perfect of anatomical atlases [...] Wandelaar placed his skeletons and musclemen against lush ornamental backgrounds to give them the illusion of vitality, using contrasts of mass and light to produce a three-dimensional effect. The most famous plate in the atlas depicts a skeletal figure standing in front of an enormous grazing rhinoceros, sketched by Wandelaar from the first living specimen in Europe, which had arrived at Amsterdam zoo in 1741’ (Norman). Bound with the extremely rare suite of plates by Wandelaar depicting a life-size uterus at a late stage of pregnancy; no copies of this recorded as selling at auction (RBH/ABSA). First work: Garrison-Morton 399; Norman 29. Both works: Choulant-Frank, pp. 276-283 (‘[Albinus] was the pioneer of a new epoch in human anatomy’); Heirs of Hippocrates 831 and 834; Wellcome II, p. 26.

Two works bound in two volumes, broadsheet folio (693 x 514 mm). First work: engraved title vignette, engraved dedication, 43 unsigned and unpaginated leaves of letterpress, 40 engraved plates by Jan Wandelaar including 12 outline plates (dedication and a few text leaves faintly browned, but mostly clean and crisp); second work: 7 engraved plates (without the final plate published as an appendix later in 1751 and which, according to the title, was not conceived at this juncture and evidently never bound into this copy). ?Publisher’s crimson quarter roan over marbled-paper covered boards, each cover comprising at least 6 joined pasteboard sections, uncut (lacking ties, rubbed, pasteboard splitting along join of 2 boards of vol. 1 near fore-edge, faint dust-soiling to edges of uncut leaves). Provenance: Albert John Chalmers (British colonial physician and pioneer in tropical medicine research, 1870-1920; bookplates and plates recording bequest from Mrs Chalmers in the year of his death, to:) – Royal Society of Medicine (stamps on title dated 2 December 1935).

[Sold with:]

— Tables of the Skeleton and Muscles of the Human Body. London: John and Paul Knapton, 1749. [With:] – A Compleat System of the Blood-Vessels and Nerves. London: John and Paul Knapton, 1750.

First English editions, published two years after the Latin edition. ‘Especially notable are the first London reprints, in 1749, [...] in Latin; and (in a shorter version) in English, as Tables of the skeleton and muscles of the human body, H. Woodfall for John and Paul Knapton. The plates for these reprints were most carefully and elegantly re-engraved’ (Roberts & Tomlinson, p. 329). Ravenet was the engraver responsible for preserving their artistic quality. The Tables are followed by plates to the A Compleat System of the Blood-Vessels and Nerves, this time with the plates engraved by Müller. Roberts & Tomlinson, The Fabric of the Body (1992) pp. 320-339; K.F. Russell, British Anatomy, 1525-1800 - A Bibliography (1963), 6 and 13.

Together two works, broadsheets (718 x 541 mm). First work with letterpress title with engraved vignette, 40 engraved plates including 12 outline plates (lacking all text, final plate lightly creased); second work: 10 engraved plates (only, of 11) of which 3 in outline (some faint dust-soiling to extremities). Uncut sheets, loose, contained in a modern card portfolio. Provenance: Royal Society of Medicine (stamps on title dated 28 February 1950).
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