Dr. Louis Auzoux

Louis Thomas Jérôme Auzoux (1797-1880) Skinned Human anatomical Model Paris, around 1850 135 cm In the 1820s Louis Auzoux, a French medical graduate ...

This rare papier-mâché anatomical model of a human leg originates from the renowned workshops of Dr. Louis Auzoux in France, a pioneer of 19th-century anatomical teaching models. Cr...

Sinke & van Tongeren exhibited this extremely rare Auzoux Gorilla by carefully taking apart the model and creating an exploded view of this historically important piece. When viewed from a particular angle all pieces come together to form the original shape. It was part of the exhibition called ‘TIER’ at MOA in The Netherlands The story of a remarkable 19th century anatomical model created just four years after Darwin unleashed a political storm with his theories on human evolution. The publication of Charles Darwin’s controversial On the Origin of Species in 1859 caused debates to rage about human evolution, debates which witnessed the politicisation of a creature whose existence had only recently been confirmed by modern science. On one side of the argument was the Darwinian camp; on the other were those opposed to Darwin’s theory, such as Richard Owen, the famed Director of the Natural History Museum and a man who, interestingly, coined the word ‘dinosaur’. Tales of the creature in question had endured for centuries, but up until 1847 it remained a myth, an unknown. This all changed thanks to the missionary Thomas Savage and the anatomist Jeffries Wyman who wrote a paper for the journal of the Boston Society of Natural History in which they described a new species: Troglodytes gorilla. (Later, in 1929, Harvard zoologist Harold Coolidge would apply the synonym Gorilla gorilla...

This is one of the largest and rarest of the Dr. Auzoux papier mâché anatomical models. It’s also one of our most ambitious offerings. This prized 1846 first generation handmade model dates to the mid-1800s. I am told that there are almost 200 separate removable parts. It was recently found tucked away in a barn for over 20 years and is fresh to the market. A handful of Auzoux full size horse...