The Anatomy Theatre
The linework — every burin stroke holds at full size

The Ideal Figure

The Ideal Figure

Human anatomy as classical sculpture.

Work
from Tabulae Sceleti et Musculorum
Maker
Bernhard Siegfried Albinus, engr. Jan Wandelaar
Date
1747
Held by
Published Leiden, 1747 · Wellcome Collection
Tabulae Sceleti et Musculorum · 1747

Format

The full-resolution scan, colour-managed to the source — yours to print, study, and explore.

Size

$29.00

The story

Albinus chose his cadaver for its nearness to the proportions of classical statuary, and posed it with a dignity worthy of an antique god — a guardian figure standing against a poetic, painterly ground. To guarantee the drawing he had Wandelaar work through a grid of nets stretched at fixed distances, a labour so exacting the two men spent years on a handful of plates. The Enlightenment's ideal of the human body, rendered with obsessive care.

See it on your wall

The plate, in the room it was made for

The Ideal Figure, printed large and framed — in the consulting room, the study, the library. Every edition ships ready to become the piece the room is built around.

The Ideal Figure framed on the wall
The Ideal Figure framed on the wall
The Ideal Figure framed on the wall
The Ideal Figure framed on the wall

About this reproduction

  • A reproduction of from Tabulae Sceleti et Musculorum — Bernhard Siegfried Albinus, engr. Jan Wandelaar, 1747 — from the copy held by Published Leiden, 1747 · Wellcome Collection. The source. The work is centuries out of copyright and in the public domain.
  • Printed faithful to that source scan. We do not re-colour it, complete it, or interpret it; the plate you receive is the plate as it survives.
  • Printed to order on EMA matte art paper, 200gsm. Framed editions sit in a box frame under acrylic, with no mount.
  • Colour-managed to the source; the tone of the paper and the ink is the engraver’s, not ours.
  • Ships in 5–10 business days.
  • If it arrives less than perfect, we reprint or refund — your choice.

Why our plates cost more than a poster: a poster is a mass run on wood-pulp stock, colour-corrected to whatever flattered the press that day. This is one sheet, pulled for you, at a size where the engraver’s hand is visible — the linework, the tonal work, the lettering — on a matte sheet that shows every line without glare.

From the same hand

The Skeleton and the Rhinoceros — from Tabulae Sceleti et Musculorum, Bernhard Siegfried Albinus, engr. Jan Wandelaar, 1747

Bernhard Siegfried Albinus, engr. Jan Wandelaar · 1747

The Skeleton and the Rhinoceros

An anatomy plate with a rhinoceros in the background.

Tabulae Sceleti et Musculorum · 1747
A Skeleton, from the Osteographia — from Osteographia, or the Anatomy of the Bones, William Cheselden, 1733

William Cheselden · 1733

A Skeleton, from the Osteographia

Bones drawn with the aid of the camera obscura.

Osteographia · 1733