Appendix, Table 2: Male anatomical Figure showing Musculature

Anatomy

The second table of the appendix in William Cowper's The Anatomy of Humane Bodies depicts a male figure, facing away into a landscape that features an overlook, where the man stands, looking over a river, on which a walled town is located. His body is flayed of any skin, revealing the musculature underneath. The figure is posed in a contraposto stance, demonstrating how the muscles react when engaged and relaxed, and stretched in different ways through the positions of the legs and arms. The signature of the engraver, Michiel van der Gucht can be identified in the bottom right corner of the illustration. The signature of the artist who drew the illustrations, Henry Cook, can also be seen in the bottom left corner of the illustration. The appendix, a series of 9 additional plates designed by Henry Cook were added to the end of the 105 copperplate engravings designed by Gerard de Lairesse for Govard Bidloo's anatomical atlas. Bidloo's atlas failed to provide an examination of the entire musculature of the body, as well as several other features that Cowper felt was necessary to provide within his own anatomical atlas. The body is labelled in numerous locations with numbers and letters, identifying the different muscles of the body.

Henry Cook (artist), Michiel van der Gucht (engraver)

Printed at the theatre for Samuel Smith and Benjamin Walford, printers to the Royal Societyin 1698.

1698

The Anatomy of Humane Bodies

William Cowper

Henry Cook

Michiel van der Gucht

Public Access (U.S. National Library of Medicine, 2004)

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English

Medical Text

Seventeenth century English medical practice

The anatomy of humane bodies, with figures drawn after the life by some of the best masters in Europe, and curiously engraven in one hundred and fourteen copper plates, illustrated with large explications, containing many new anatomical discoveries, and chirurgical observations, to which is added an introduction explaining the animal oeconomy, with a copious index.

1698

The Anatomy of Humane Bodies

Copperplate engraving

William Cowper. "Appendix, 2nd Table." The Anatomy of Humane Bodies. Oxford, Printed at the theatre for Samuel Smith and Benjamin Walford, printers to the Royal Society, 1698.

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