Tag: Stephen Martin
-
Faustina Maratti’s poem and altarpiece on losing her infant son
Stephen MartinThailand A most unusual altarpiece panel of the Virgin with the infants Christ and John the Baptist came to light recently. (Fig 1) The heavily-sawn pitch pine had an inscription on the back which was difficult to read. Studying the ink writing under violet light, however, it was not hard to make out: Pinxit…
-
Portraits of William Hunter by Reynolds, Chamberlin, and Ramsay
Stephen MartinThailand The Hunterian in Glasgow University and The Royal Academy, London, have three portraits of the anatomist Dr William Hunter.1,2 They make a particularly interesting group with personalized, cryptic symbols and plain emblems of anatomy and the Enlightenment. Despite some discussion,3 their specific icons have never been analyzed. Portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds Reynolds…
-
Nicolò Manucci, physician at the Court of Prince Shah Alam in seventeenth-century India
Stephen MartinThailand A teenage stowaway on a ship from Venice in 1653 had an unusual route into medicine. He was Nicolò Manucci (1638–1720, Fig 1). The earliest image of him gathering medicinal herbs in India is in the style of a Moghul imperial artist, probably done in Aurangabad, judging by the pink and brown color of…
-
Medical monuments in St. John’s Church, Kolkata
Stephen MartinThailand The British architecture of Kolkata, though by no means representative of modern India, has some extraordinary beauty. One of many outstanding sites is St. John’s Church, consecrated in 1787 (Fig 1) and based on James Gibbs’ St. Martin in the Fields in Trafalgar Square, London. In the Regency period, Michael Cheese was the…
-
Anatomy and psychology in George Stubbs’ portrait of Joseph Banks
Stephen MartinThailandAidan JonesUnited Kingdom Medical investigation techniques applied to art history1 can help solve mysteries, as illustrated by a striking, late eighteenth-century portrait2 (Fig 1) recently acquired for an educational exhibition.3 Its history had been forgotten, but it was identified as an inheritance portrait by its dirty, dog-eared parchment property titles in legal pink ribbon.4…
-
Art, anhedonia, and family psychodynamics in the creativity of Nathaniel Hawthorne
Stephen MartinThailand There are interesting questions about how the mental phenomenology of the great writer Nathaniel Hawthorne1 drove his work. His supreme narrative gift and engaging observation were shadowed by anhedonia, which is a complete or partial lack of the ability to experience pleasure and a hallmark of clinical depression. In modern criteria,2 major depressive…
-
Blindness and visual sensory distortion in Thomas Bewick’s woodcuts
Stephen MartinThailand The artist and naturalist Thomas Bewick (1753–1828) was one of the Enlightenment’s leading polymaths. He wrote groundbreaking books on birds1 and mammals,2 as well as an autobiography, which is absorbing and charming. This Memoir of Thomas Bewick3 is a delightfully detailed window on the eighteenth century and Regency periods, focusing on his ordinary…
-
Clinical signs in images of King Henry VII
Stephen MartinDurham, United Kingdom Westminster Abbey has a superb effigy that was made for the funeral of King Henry VII. (Fig 1) Henry, born in 1457 and deceased in 1509, was famous for defeating Richard III in the Wars of the Roses. The effigy has such breathtaking detail that it was probably made from a…
-
The painting of the Good Samaritan in Bracciano Castle
Stephen MartinThailand The Orsini of Bracciano were one of the richest and most powerful aristocratic families in early modern Italy.1 Much of their impressive collection remains in Bracciano Castle, Lazio,2 and includes an early painting of the Good Samaritan described by Saint Luke. It is unusual in style and dates from about 1570 to 1630,…
-
John Hunter, his wolf dogs, and the inherited smiles of Pomeranians
Stephen MartinUnited Kingdom John Hunter, 1728-1793, was a polymathic doctor. Besides being an anatomist and clinician, he was also interested in early genetics, exemplified by his “Observations tending to shew that the Wolf, Jackal, and Dog, are all of the Same Species.”1 Hunter presented this paper to the Royal Society in 1787. (Fig 1) His…