Comparative anatomical exposition of the structure of the human body with that of a tiger and a common fowl : manuscript.
Published / Created:
London?, ca. [1798?]
Physical Description:
4 volumes ; 26-34 cm
Collection:
Rare Books and Manuscripts
Copyright Status:
Copyright Not Evaluated
Related Content:
View catalog records for Stubbs's drawings for the Comparative anatomical exposition (Yale Center for British Art, Department of Prints and Drawings)
https://collections.britishart.yale.edu/?f%5Bcollection_ss%5D%5B%5D=Prints+and+Drawings&q=Comparative+anatomical+exposition&search_field=all_fields
Classification:
Archives & Manuscripts
Notes:
"Although the comparison of such disparate creatures might seem idiosyncratic, it in fact reflects eighteenth-century scientific thinking on the shared structure of all living things. Indeed, Stubbs may well have been encouraged in the enterprise by the brothers William and John Hunter, the celebrated anatomists, both of whom commissioned paintings of exotic animals from Stubbs. Ozias Humphry recorded that it was Stubbs's intention to extend his comparative studies to other quadrupeds and birds and even vegetables. At the time of his death in 1806, Stubbs had finished the drawings comparing man, tiger, and fowl and published three of six parts: a total of thirty plates from the intended sixty. He had also written out four volumes of text to accompany the drawings, two in French, indicating that he anticipated a Continental audience for the finished work. According to his common-law wife, Mary Spencer, Stubbs stated in the hour of his death, 'I had indeed hoped to have finished my Comparative Anatomy eer I went, for other things I have no anxiety.'"--George Stubbs in the collection of Paul Mellon.