A phrenologist in his consulting room, examining the head of a young man and dictating the results to his assistant while a woman looks on. Coloured etching by George Cruikshank, 1826, after H.T.D.B.

  • B., H. T. D.
Date:
Feb.y 24th. 1826
Reference:
460156i
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view A phrenologist in his consulting room, examining the head of a young man and dictating the results to his assistant while a woman looks on. Coloured etching by George Cruikshank, 1826, after H.T.D.B.

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A phrenologist in his consulting room, examining the head of a young man and dictating the results to his assistant while a woman looks on. Coloured etching by George Cruikshank, 1826, after H.T.D.B. Wellcome Collection. Public Domain Mark. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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About this work

Description

The phrenologist is identified in the British Museum catalogue as J. De Ville, a phrenologist in the Strand. He is portrayed as an elderly man with a bizarrely shaped skull. He stands on the right and holds out his right hand to touch the head of the young man kneeling before him. Behind the phrenologist stands his amanuensis writing in a book "Very large wit no. 32". Right, a large bookcase full of books. On back wall, craniological drawings framed in swept frames

Publication/Creation

London (24 St. James's Str.t) : Pubd. ... by G. Humphrey, Feb.y 24th. 1826.

Physical description

1 print : etching and aquatint, with watercolour ; image, text and border 25.3 x 20.2 cm

Contributors

Lettering

Bumpology. "pores o'er the cranial map ...beneath each prominence". H.T.D.B. Esq. del. Etched by G.C.k Quatrain etched below image: "Pores o'er the cranial map with learned eyes, Each rising hill and bumpy knoll descries, Here secret fires, and there deep mines of sense His touch detects beneath each prominence". A scroll next to a phrenological head is inscribed "Thurtell shown to be craniologically an excellent character" (Thurtell was hanged as a murderer)

References note

British Museum, Catalogue of political and personal satires, vol. X, London 1952, no. 15157

Reference

Wellcome Collection 460156i

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