"Exquisite Bodies" at the Wellcome Collection

[fullbreakfast]

I reckon this exhibition, on until October 18, may tickle a few fancies around here:

In the 19th century, despite the best efforts of body snatchers, the demand from medical schools for fresh cadavers far outstripped the supply. One solution to this gruesome problem came in the form of lifelike wax models. These models often took the form of alluring female figures that could be stripped and split into different sections. Other models were more macabre, showing the body ravaged by 'social diseases' such as venereal disease, tuberculosis and alcohol and drug addiction.

www.wellcomecollection.org/exhibitionsandevents/exhibitions/Exquisite-Bodies/index.htm

www.wellcomecollection.org/exhibitionsandevents/exhibitions/Exquisite-Bodies/Image-galleries/index.htm

The Wellcome is a short stroll from Euston Station for any who don't know it. And admission is free. I'm planning a trip in the next couple of weeks myself.

[fullbreakfast]

I made it to the exhibition yesterday. It's not huge (half an hour is plenty of time to take it in) but it's good morbid stuff. You've got to be happy with any show where some of the exhibits are concealed behind a red velvet curtain because they are TOO HORRID for those of a sensitive disposition to witness (wax models showing genital chancres caused by syphilis - unlikely to be too horrid for anyone here I suspect). The two-headed calf was rather cute and I wanted to take it home.

If you go it's worth popping upstairs to have a look at the rest of the collection while you're there. Highlights for the Vault-minded:

• the Chinese torture chair
  
• the 700 year old Peruvian mummy
  
• a fine collection of saws and other surgical implements
  
• a couple of canvasses by Heironymus Bosch or a follower of his
  
• a particularly grotesque contemporary art piece, I can't help the way I feel by John Isaacs.
  

The Peruvian chap deserves a mug shot here I think:



If only he was Spanish he could have been up for a bit part in Tombs of the Blind Dead.