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

Memento Mori

The Dance of Death

Skeletons in restless, theatrical motion.

Work
from Nouveau Recueil d’Ostéologie et de Myologie
Maker
Jacques Gamelin
Date
1779
Held by
Published Toulouse, 1779 · Wellcome Collection
Nouveau Recueil d’Ostéologie et de Myologie · 1779

Format

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

Size

$29.00

The story

The painter Gamelin made his anatomy book a work of high drama — skeletons that gesture, recoil, and dance, staged like actors in a memento-mori theatre rather than laid out like specimens. He was a history painter first, and it shows: the plates are composed, lit, and cast. Part scientific manual, part *danse macabre*, the book belongs as much to the tradition of Holbein's *Dance of Death* as to the dissecting room.

See it on your wall

The plate, in the room it was made for

The Dance of Death, 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 Dance of Death framed on the wall
The Dance of Death framed on the wall
The Dance of Death framed on the wall
The Dance of Death framed on the wall

About this reproduction

  • A reproduction of from Nouveau Recueil d’Ostéologie et de Myologie — Jacques Gamelin, 1779 — from the copy held by Published Toulouse, 1779 · 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 collection

An Anatomical Tableau — from Thesaurus Anatomicus, after Frederik Ruysch, early 18th c.

after Frederik Ruysch · early 18th c.

An Anatomical Tableau

A still life built from the body itself.

Thesaurus Anatomicus