Bernhardus Siegfried Albinus, Tabulae Sceleti et Musculorum corporis humani.
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The Monro Collection contains nine works by Bernhardus Siegfried Albinus (1697-1770), affirming his importance to the medical community in the eighteenth century and beyond. Albinus was a pupil of the Dutch physician Herman Boerhaave (1668-1738) and for half a century held Chairs at the University of Leiden first of Anatomy and Surgery and later Medicine. Monro Primus studied under Albinus, and some of the texts contain his pencil marks and marginalia. Today, these texts are pieces of art, but in his day they were valuable textbooks and were used as such. Here we see 'Muscle Man' from one of a variety of angles and states of 'undress'. Interestingly, the artist was just as engrossed in the background, as it too changes in every picture. Here the rhinoceros represents an interesting backdrop.
Bernhardus Siegfried Albinus, Tabulae Sceleti et Musculorum corporis humani. Lugduni Batavorum [Leiden]: J. and H. Verbeek, 1747. A2