The Epitome, Plate 45

One layer deeper, arms open.

Work: from De Humani Corporis Fabrica Librorum Epitome
Maker: Andreas Vesalius
Date: 1543
Held by: Published Basel, 1543 · Wellcome Collection · via Wikimedia Commons

Epitome · 1543

Format

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

Size

$29.00

The story

A companion to plate 41 from the same copy of the Epitome, the students' version of Vesalius's anatomy printed in Basel in 1543. The figure stands with his arms held away from the body and his palms turned out, a pose chosen so that nothing hides anything else, and the lettering beside him keys each muscle to the text. Set beside its partner it shows the method of the whole book: the body taken apart in order, one plate at a time. Photographed by the Wellcome Collection from its early printed books.

See it on your wall

The plate, in the room it was made for

The Epitome, Plate 45, 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 Epitome, Plate 45 framed on the wall

About this reproduction

A reproduction of from De Humani Corporis Fabrica Librorum Epitome — Andreas Vesalius, 1543 — from the copy held by Published Basel, 1543 · Wellcome Collection · via Wikimedia Commons. 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