Find thousands of books, manuscripts, visual materials and unpublished archives from our collections, many of them with free online access.
Search for free, downloadable images taken from our library and museum collections, including paintings, illustrations, photos and more.
The vivisector asked to choose between head and heart. Photogravure, 1886, after an etching by M.J. Holzapfl after a painting by Gabriel von Max, 1883.
- Max, Gabriel Cornelius von, 1840-1915
- Date
- [1886]
- Reference
- 528621i
- Pictures
- Online
Available online
Licence
Public Domain Mark
You can use this work for any purpose without restriction under copyright law.
Public Domain Mark (PDM) terms and conditions https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0
Credit: The vivisector asked to choose between head and heart. Photogravure, 1886, after an etching by M.J. Holzapfl after a painting by Gabriel von Max, 1883. Wellcome Collection. Public Domain Mark
Selected images from this work
About this work
Description
Entitled "The vivisector", the print shows on the left a physiologist sitting at a table (left) equipped with steel bars and ropes for restraining animals used for experiment. He turns round to look at a woman who holds a puppy in her right arm. In her left hand she holds a balance containing, in one pan, a brain bedecked with a wreath, which is outweighed by the other pan containing a heart smouldering with the fire of love. The painter suggests that our emotional sympathy for the puppy should outweigh the cerebral knowledge that we may have that the sufferings of the animal used in animal experiments can bring benefits
Publication/Creation
Wien [Vienna] : Druck. & Verlag der Gesellschaft f. vervielf. Kunst in Wien, [1886]
Physical description
1 print : photogravure ; platemark 23 x 33 cm
Lettering
Der Vivisector. Gabriel Max pxt. ; M.J. Holzapfl sct. Vervielfältigung vorbehalten.
Reference
Wellcome Library no. 528621i
References note
W. Schupbach, 'A select iconography of animal experiment', in N. Rupke, ed., Vivisection in historical perspective, London 1987, pp. 340-360 and p. 212, pl. 4
Creator/production credits
Gabriel Max was himself a philosopher and naturalist as well as a painter very well known in his time for his singeries (paintings of monkeys performing human tasks)
Lettering note
Inscription on the painting, lower right, reproduced in the etching: Vivisector
Reproduction note
After: a painting produced by Max in 1883 on canvas 101 x 167 cm. belonging to the Ernst von Siemens Kunststiftung, Munich, on permanent loan to the Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus und Kunstbau, Munich, inv. no. FH 551; previously with Galerie Konrad Bayer and exhibited by them at the Kunst-Messe München in 2007. The painting went on tour in 1884 to Dresden, Hamburg, Düsseldorf and Vienna, and in 1885 to London, where it was exhibited under the title "The Genius of Pity staying the Vivisector's hand". It played a part in the intense conflict between the proponents and opponents of animal experiment which flared up in the 1880s owing to developments in physiology
Type/Technique
Languages
- German
Where to find it
Location Status Access Closed stores