The first public museums evolved from wealthy collectors’ cabinets of curiosities and were quickly recognised as useful vehicles for culture.

Woodcut of the Wunderkammer room, from Dell'historia naturale

Terracotta bust of Sir Hans Sloane, founder of the Chelsea Physic Gardens.

Millbank penitentiary, London. Engraving by J. Tingle after T. H. Shepherd.

The Great Exhibition in the Crystal Palace, Hyde Park, London: the opening by Queen Victoria. Steel engraving by H. Bibby, 1851.

Henry Solomon Wellcome. Photograph by Lafayette Ltd.

M0008653: Burroughs Wellcome & Co exhibit at the Century of Progress International Exposition, 1934 / M0008655: Burroughs Wellcome & Co exhibit at the Century of Progress International Exposition, 1934

M0020295: Display of effigies at the Wellcome Historical Medical Museum at Wigmore Street, 1913

The birth of the public museum

How the modern world changed the life and reputation of the yogi.

The mystics, ascetics, and saints of India : a study of Sadhuism, with an account of the Yogis, Sanyasis, Bairagis, and other strange Hindu sectarians / by John Campbell Oman ; with ill. by William Campbell Oman.

Two yogis, one meditating, the other performing a fire ritual. Gouache drawing.

A Vaishnavite or bairagi ascetic. Gouache, 18--.

An old Hindu ascetic or holy man: standing, with left arm raised above his head, and overgrown fingernails. Gouache painting.

A Fakir man and wife of south India. Gouache painting.

Hindi Manuscript 884

Sikh ascetics misbehaving: preparing drugs, slothfulness, begging, teaching the young wrong ways. Coloured transfer lithograph.

Yoga body : the origins of modern posture practice / Mark Singleton.

Benares, India: a fakir sitting on a bed of nails. Photograph by R.C. Mazumdar, ca. 1900 (?).

A history of modern yoga : Patañjali and Western esotericism / Elizabeth De Michelis.

The yogi as hermit, warrior, criminal and showman

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The birth of the public museum

The yogi as hermit, warrior, criminal and showman