attributed to Edward Burch
Anatomical figure
May one see it?
Yes, receiving visitors
Victoria and Albert Museum
London, United Kingdom
RoomSculpture, Room 22, The Dorothy and Michael Hintze Galleries
On public display.
- Checked
- In this state since
- Source
- The museum
About the sculpture
Anatomical figures such as this, highlighting the muscles of the human body, were used to teach both medical and art students. This example was probably cast from a wax by the Anglo-Danish sculptor Michael Henry Spang (whose statuette of Hogarth is also in the collection of the Museum; inv. no. 311-1885) after a plaster cast of the flayed body of an executed criminal.
On acquisition this figure was originally thought to be Italian, but Martin Kemp identified it as a work cast after Spang, whose wax model of this figure is in the Hunterian Museum in Glasgow. Spang originally modelled this ecorché in wax for Dr William Hunter (1718-1783) and exhibited it at the Society of Artists in 1761.
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Edward Burch is known to have cast in bronze several model made by Spang. In 1767, he was awarded a premium for a bronze ‘Cast of an anatomy figure, after Spang’ at the Society of Arts. Further bronze examples of this figure are known in other museum collections. Burch was a gem-engraver and sculptor, who had great success for more than two decades. His career declined from 1788 and from 1794 to 1812 he served as Librarian at the Royal Academy.
Victoria and Albert Museum
Particulars
- Accession number
- A.18-1945
In the catalog
Sources
- Victoria and Albert Museum
- Image: Victoria and Albert Museum — © Victoria and Albert Museum, London
