The Anatomical Venus /anglais

Beneath the original Venetian glass and rosewood case at La Specola in Florence lies Clemente Susini's Anatomical Venus (c. 1790), a perfect object whose luxuriously bizarre existence challenges belief. It was conceived as a means to teach human anatomy without the need for constant dissection, which was messy, ethically fraught, and subject to quick decay. This life-sized wax woman is adorned with glass eyes and human hair and can be dismembered into dozens of parts, revealing a foetus curled in her womb. Sister models soon appeared throughout Europe, instructing students and delighting the public. These dissectable female wax models, along with other anatomical sculptures, have fascinated and confounded audiences since their creation, blurring lines between science and art, life and death, spectacle and education.