The Frontispiece, 1543

A public dissection, crowded to the rafters.

Work: title page for De Humani Corporis Fabrica
Maker: after Jan Stefan van Calcar
Date: 1543
Held by: Published Basel, 1543 · Rijksmuseum · via Wikimedia Commons

Andreae Vesalii Bruxellensis · 1543

Format

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

Size

$29.00

The story

The woodcut that opened the book. Andreas Vesalius stands at the dissecting table with his own hand on the body, which was the point: a professor who cut, rather than one who read aloud from Galen while a barber did the work. Around him the hall is packed past its columns, students leaning from the balustrade, a skeleton raised above the crowd, a dog and a monkey at the edges. The design is credited on the block to Jan Stefan van Calcar. This impression is held by the Rijksmuseum, which records it as the title page for the Fabrica of 1543.

See it on your wall

The plate, in the room it was made for

The Frontispiece, 1543, 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 Frontispiece, 1543 framed on the wall

About this reproduction

A reproduction of title page for De Humani Corporis Fabrica — after Jan Stefan van Calcar, 1543 — from the copy held by Published Basel, 1543 · Rijksmuseum · 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 collection