Wellcome uses cookies.

Read our policy
Wellcome Collection homepage
All
Stories
Images
Catalogue
Events
354 results
  • Three Chinese men torture a prisoner by extracting a vein from his lower leg . Gouache painting by a Chinese artist, ca. 1850.
  • The torture of William Lithgow in the dungeons of the Inquisition in Malaga in 1620. Line engraving with etching by W. Raddon after Craig.
  • A Hindu ascetic or holy man performing self-torture, accompanied by a woman. Gouache painting by an artist of Thanjavur (Tanjore), ca. 1800 (?).
  • Canton, China: six men suspended by the neck in locked cages in public as a method of slow torture and execution for piracy. Photograph, 18--.
  • Chinese prisoners being subjected to torture: two men are shown bound and suspended from a horizontal pole, watched by their torturer, while two others await a similar fate below. Gouache painting on rice-paper, 1780/1880?.
  • A Chinese woman being subjected to torture while tied to a cross: blood is seen ematating from the woman's eyes and mouth and her torturer is shown standing besided her. Gouache painting on rice-paper, 18--?.
  • A Japanese man heating his sword before using it to torture or kill a man tied to wooden staves. Colour process print after a woodcut (?).
  • A Chinese man heats up sections of a metal chain over a flame in order to torture a prisoner. Gouache painting by a Chinese artist, ca. 1850.
  • Various forms of mutilation and torture including scourging, beheading, burning, hanging, drowning, quartering, the cutting off of hands and ears, and the breaking on the rack. Woodcut.
  • Left, a man suffers the "torture of water"; left, a man tied to a rack has his armpits and the soles of his feet scorched by candles. Etching.
  • Various methods of torture: one victim lies in the "iron coffin of Lissa" while others are tied to the pillory or writhe in pain on the ground. Woodcut.
  • A Chinese woman being subjected to torture while tied to a cross: the woman's torturer is shown using a knife to cut open her abdomen, arms and face, while a formally-dressed man looks on. Gouache painting on rice-paper, 18--?.
  • A premium for pain : Marsh UK and The Beckett Group : collaborators in animal torture : Marsh UK and The Beckett Group both provide vital insurance services to the notorious animal torturers Huntingdon Life Sciences... / SHAC.
  • A premium for pain : Marsh UK and The Beckett Group : collaborators in animal torture : Marsh UK and The Beckett Group both provide vital insurance services to the notorious animal torturers Huntingdon Life Sciences... / SHAC.
  • Various methods of torture: one victim lies in the "iron coffin of Lissa" while others are tied to the pillory or are being stoned to death in the background. Woodcut.
  • A kneeling Chinese woman is subjected to torture: the woman's hands are tied above her head, while two men insert a pole between her wrists. Gouache painting on rice-paper, 18--?.
  • A kneeling Chinese woman is subjected to torture: the woman's hands are tied above her head, while two men insert a pole between her wrists. Gouache painting on rice-paper, 1780/1880?.
  • Victims of torture are tied to wooden planks and thrown off a wall at the bottom of which young men are waiting to beat them to death with wooden clubs. Wood engraving.
  • A man is led in chains before a jury while various forms of torture are enacted in the background, such as burning, hammering to death, breaking on the wheel and hanging. Woodcut.
  • Methods of torture in Africa: a man is forced to catch a very hot iron ring with his bare hands above a cauldron over a fire. Wood engraving by H.S. Melville.
  • A torture chamber of the Spanish Inquisition with suspected heretics having their feet burned or being suspended with a rope from a pulley while scribes note down confessions. Engraving by B. Picart, 1722.
  • A slave who venerated the relics of Saint Mark is saved from martyrdom when his instrument of torture is broken by a miracle. Colour woodcut by J.B. Jackson, 1731/1745, after J. Robusti, il Tintoretto.
  • A man charged with punishing a slave who venerated the relics of Saint Mark shows that his instrument of torture was broken by a miracle. Colour woodcut by J.B. Jackson, 1731/1745, after J. Robusti, il Tintoretto.
  • A man charged with punishing a slave who venerated the relics of Saint Mark shows that his instrument of torture was broken by a miracle. Colour woodcut by J.B. Jackson, 1731/1745, after J. Robusti, il Tintoretto.
  • Various forms of torture: victims are shown to be pushed of a platform to plunge into death, or shoved into a cauldron filled with boiling water, or pressed with their bodies onto nails on the ground. Woodcut.
  • A man charged with punishing a slave who venerated the relics of Saint Mark shows that his instrument of torture was broken by a miracle. Colour woodcut by J.B. Jackson, 1731/1745, after J. Robusti, il Tintoretto.
  • The torture of Hans Bret, an Englishman captured in Antwerp in 1576: Bret is sitting chained to a rock having his tongue removed with hot pliers in preparation to be burnt on the stake at a later stage. Etching.
  • Three Chinese men being subjected to torture and execution: left, the body of a recently decapitated man, centre, a man tied to a cross, right, an executioner prepars to decapitate a kneeling man. Gouache painting on rice-paper, 18--?.
  • A torture chamber where one victim is tied up and suspended from a pulley while being interrogated by two scribes, while another victim is suspended from the ceiling and lowered onto a spike with his rectum. Etching by L.M. after V.V.
  • The punishment and torture of the "Peacock" dervishes by order of Emin Pasha's rebel officers: the dervishes are lined up and seated to have their ears sliced off. Coloured wood engraving by P. Naumann after W.H. Overend after A.J. Mounteney-Jephson.