The Traction Bench, 1575

A surgeon, two assistants, ropes and pulleys.

Work: woodcut
Maker: Unknown maker
Date: 1575
Held by: Published France, 1575 · Wellcome Collection

Format

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

Size

$29.00

The story

A woodcut printed in France in 1575. A patient lies on a long bench under a row of arched windows while a surgeon and two assistants work the ropes and pulleys that draw a limb back into place. Every hand in the picture has a job, and the machine is drawn with more care than the faces. Long before anaesthesia, setting a dislocation was a matter of force applied slowly and evenly, and this is what that looked like in a Renaissance surgery. Wellcome Collection, held under the Public Domain Mark.

See it on your wall

The plate, in the room it was made for

The Traction Bench, 1575, 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 Traction Bench, 1575 framed on the wall

About this reproduction

A reproduction of woodcut — Unknown maker, 1575 — from the copy held by Published France, 1575 · 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