ANATOMY AND ART. 
421 
tain that Titian's pupil, Jean Calcar, executed the larger 
number of them. 
Passing by without comment many works on anatomy, 
more or less artistic, which were composed after the example 
of Vesalius, I come to the masterpiece of the 17th century- 
The finest work of art in the shape of anatomical copper¬ 
plate engraving ever produced is the superb folio of Godfrey 
Bidloo, published at Amsterdam in 1685. The drawings 
were made for him by the artist Gerard de Lairesse, and 
the engraving is worthy of the artist and the professor. 
Lairesse confined himself to a close delineation of his sub¬ 
ject, but a little of the old-time fancifulness is occasionally 
apparent, especially in two plates which are introductions 
to the osteology. In one of these a superb skeleton has just 
stepped out of a massive sarcophagus and holds aloft an 
hourglass with the air of one who discourses on the brevity 
of life. In the second plate the grim moralist is returning 
to his grave with a sardonic smile, as if he preferred his 
peaceful rest to the turbulent outside. 
And here is a convenient place to draw attention to the 
humorous displays of the early anatomists. Representa¬ 
tions of the bony emblem of mortality in fantastic positions 
or relations appear in quite ancient literature. The pres¬ 
ence of such a lugubrious guest at a feast or in places de¬ 
voted to pleasure is a curious usage derived, according to 
Herodotus, from the Egyptians. The expression “ a skele¬ 
ton at the feast” is proverbial, but it is inaccurate as regards 
its source. The word skeletos, in its original usage, meant a 
dead body—a dried-up corpse, a mummy—and it is most 
likely that at the feasts of the ancient Egyptians a mummy 
served as the memento mori. In the museum of the Vatican 
is a marble thorax which exhibits the ribs only, but very 
finely proportioned. It is thought that this was intended 
to serve a similar purpose. 
There was much sardonic humor in the old anatomists. 
In Valverde’s work is to be seen an ecorche who holds a 
knife in one hand, and with the other holds up the entire 
