Cancer of oesophagus with secondaries in heart, in a 47-year old woman with bone malformation: (a) heart, posterior aspect, and section showing right ventricle eroded by yellow carcinoma growth and (b) ink sketch, after radiograph, to show osteomalacia in the left femur. Watercolour by Barbara E. Nicholson, 1954.

Ashford, Middlesex, 1954.

1 painting : watercolour, with gouache and black ink ; sheet 37.6 x 25 cm

Barbara Evelyn Nicholson (1906 – 1978) trained at the Royal College of Art, graduating in 1923. She began her artistic career as a medical illustrator and was a founder member of the Medical Artists Association, where she is recorded as serving on an exhibition committee in October 1949. By 1951, she had illustrated G.F. Gibberd, A short textbook of midwifery (2nd ed., London: J. & A. Churchill, 1941) and Philip Wiles, Essentials of orthopaedics (London: J. & A. Churchill, 1949). The Medical Artists Association records last list her, in 1951. In the 1950s her focus moved to botanical subjects and from the late 1950s – 1970s she was a prolific botanical illustrator.

<...> 48, index no. 424/54, back, outline of l<eft> femur, front, r<ight> ventricle from behind, r<ight> ventricle opened Lettering inscribed in black ink as key, typed accompanying note with patient history explains that due to bone disease, patient was bed-ridden since the age of twelve. Admitted to hospital with haematemesis and barium swallow identified carcinoma in the lower oesophagus Bears number: 424/1954

The watercolours and pen and ink drawings held by Wellcome Collection were painted by Barbara Nicholson at Ashford Hospital, Ashford, Middlesex, between 1946 and 1951, at the request of the surgeon Norman Matheson.

Wellcome Collection 35231i

Presented to the Wellcome Institute Library in 1987 by Ashford Postgraduate Medical Centre, as part of a collection of medical illustrations by Barbara E. Nicholson.