A human skeleton, seen from the front, resting the bones of his lower left arm on a spade handle. Engraving by D. M. Bonaveri, ca. 1685/1690 after a woodcut, 1543.

1685-1690

1 print : engraving ; image 30.7 x 20.4 cm

T.<icianus> I.<nventor et> D.<elinavit> ; D.<ominicus> B.<onaveri> S.<culpsit>

The design was first published as a woodcut (the first skeleton plate) to Andreas Vesalius's De humani corporis fabrica (Basel 1543). The artist responsible for the designs for this work is not identified in the publication. Although they were attributed in the sixteenth century to Jan Stephan van Calkar, a Flemish artist who worked in Italy, a tradition arose in the seventeenth century, of which Bonaveri is an early example, attributing them to the Venetian artist, Titian, who had been Calkar's master. For a later example of this plate published as the work of Titian's and for a discussion of the issue of attribution, see the Wellcome Library catalogue no. 26157i

Harvey Cushing, A bio-bibliography of Andreas Vesalius, New York 1942, 2nd ed. Hamden, Conn. and London 1962, no. VI. D.-9

Monique Kornell, 'A dating for Domenico Bonaveri's Notomie di Titiano', Print quarterly, 2016, 33: 379-390

Wellcome Collection 32441i

Bonaveri, in his Notomie di Titiano (ca. 1685/1690), republished a set of skeleton and muscle plates from Andreas Vesalius's De humani corporis fabrica, Basel 1543. The skeleton in the Bonaveri print reverses the original woodcut