One of the best aspects of the Gothic Society was the correspondence with sundry people who had very eclectic tastes and a witty and offbeat way of looking at things. Trying to induce order in the Gothic Society’s very disorderly archive today, I came across this beauty of a postcard sent from Munich in 1993. My correspondent writes:
I simply could not resist sending you this most interesting and, I think, slightly perverse piece. One suspects that more than anatomy is on the Doctor’s mind.
I looked up the artist, Gabriel von Max, on the internet and surprisingly found myself back at the Wellcome Collection – I don’t seem to be able to get away from them (they have only just been mentioned in my article: Colic and Headache).
The Wellcome Collection have a lithograph by F. Hanfstaengl based on the von Max painting, in which thankfully the anatomist manages to look rather less creepy. There is a distance in his spatial relationship to the beautiful young woman which is not present in the original painting – even the hand on which his chin rests is positioned differently, giving him a sad and pensive look rather than one straying near lecherous cupidity. The intentions of the anatomist in his painterly guise may be as pure as the driven snow, but the dark, beautifully lit atmosphere of his study makes it appear closer to a bedroom than a dissecting room.
The Wellcome Collection’s commentary on the Hanfstaengl lithograph is written in a more scholarly manner than the postcard (although perhaps with less psychological acuteness):
JENNIE MACK GRAY, 15 February 2026
The Wellcome Collection: An Anatomist Meditates. …
A print after a painting by Gabriel von Max of 1869, painted in Munich and subsequently in the Neue Pinakothek/Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen in Munich. An anatomist meditates, chin in hand, the body of a young, beautiful woman, pulling back the cloth that covers her body in order to gaze upon her. On the desk beside him are open books, a lamp, and human and animal skulls. As well as being tools of study they function as symbols of “vanitas”, as does the moth that has alighted next to the cadaver.
THE ANATOMIST: Link to the lithograph at the Wellcome Collection
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