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

The Fabrica

The Man Who Holds His Own Skin

A figure carrying his own flayed hide.

Work
from Historia de la Composición del Cuerpo Humano
Maker
Juan Valverde de Amusco
Date
1556
Held by
Published Rome, 1556 · Wellcome Collection
Historia de la Composición del Cuerpo Humano · 1556

Format

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

Size

$29.00

The story

Valverde's most unforgettable plate shows a flayed man standing, a knife in one hand and his own removed skin hanging from the other — a direct echo of Michelangelo's St. Bartholomew in the Sistine Chapel, painted only a few years earlier and a few streets away. It is anatomy that knows it is also art: the figure does not merely demonstrate the musculature, he presents it, and stares back at the viewer across five centuries. The gesture is Renaissance Rome's, and the nerve is entirely Valverde's.

See it on your wall

The plate, in the room it was made for

The Man Who Holds His Own Skin, 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 Man Who Holds His Own Skin framed on the wall
The Man Who Holds His Own Skin framed on the wall
The Man Who Holds His Own Skin framed on the wall
The Man Who Holds His Own Skin framed on the wall

About this reproduction

  • A reproduction of from Historia de la Composición del Cuerpo Humano — Juan Valverde de Amusco, 1556 — from the copy held by Published Rome, 1556 · 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

The Muscle Man — from De Humani Corporis Fabrica, Andreas Vesalius, 1543

Andreas Vesalius · 1543

The Muscle Man

The image that founded modern anatomy.

De Humani Corporis Fabrica · 1543
The Contemplating Skeleton — from De Humani Corporis Fabrica, Andreas Vesalius, 1543

Andreas Vesalius · 1543

The Contemplating Skeleton

A skeleton, lost in thought before a tomb.

Vivitur ingenio, caetera mortis erunt