Anatomical figure

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.

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.