Ephemeral bodies : wax sculpture and the human figure / edited by Roberta Panzanelli ; with a translation of Julius von Schlosser's "History of portraiture in wax".

Los Angeles, Calif. : Getty Research Institute, [2008], ©2008.

vii, 327 pages : illustrations (some color) ; 28 cm

Introduction: the body in wax, the body of wax / Roberta Panzanelli -- Compelling presence: wax effigies in Renaissance Florence / Roberta Panzanelli -- Wax fibers, wax bodies, and moving figures: artifice and nature in eighteenth-century anatomy / Joan B. Landes -- Almost alive: the spectacle of verisimilitude in Madame Tussaud's Waxworks / Uta Kornmeier -- On waxes and wombs: eighteenth-century representations of the Gravid Uterus / Lyle Massey -- Wax tokens of libido: William Hamilton, Richard Payne Knight, and the Phalli of Isernia / Whitney Davis -- Fleeting revelations: the demise of duration in Medardo Rosso's wax sculpture / Sharon Hecker -- Viscosities and survivals: art history put to the test by the material / Georges Didi-Huberman -- Appendix: History of portraiture in wax ("Geschichte der Porträtbildnerai in Wachs" 1910-11 / Julius von Schlosser.

Includes bibliographical references and index.