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One our fav ori te pieces in our new Collector's Cabinet ex hibition--on view at The Morbid Anatomy Museum t hrough March 29th-- is "The Witches’ Cove , " a 16th ce ntury oil on panel pai nting dep icting a Boschian vision of a w itch es celebration, complete with unspeakable acts galore and cat s dancing in a ring. We know pre cious little about t he painting, which is the work of a follower of Jan Mandijn and resides in the collection of Morbid Anatomy Museum board member Jennifer Butkevich. Due to popular demand , we have pro duced print s of both the enti re painting and the beloved "Cat's Dance" detail see n abov e. Y ou can find out --and order p rints of your own ! --b y cl icking here . More on the piece, in the words of its own er: It has monsters and grotesques and dancing kitties. What else do you need? It takes me to a fantasy world of another time. It makes you fantasize about what people were thinking back in the 16th century...

Our friend Felipe Trigo Redondo (aka "Kaiser Noir")--historian, tour guide, co-organizer of the Barcelona Congress of Curious Peoples and director of Kriminal Kabarett --just sent in the following guest post about, in his own words, "the most spectacular piece of funerary art from all the Spanish Baroque era: the Pantheon for the Counts of Buenavista!" All photos by Angel Trullen; hope you enjoy! The Pantheon for the Counts of Buenavista in Malga By Felipe Trigo Redondo On a journey to Andalusia, the extreme south of the Iberian peninsula, the traveler will always be surrounded by the echoes of an astounding past, between the brightness of transcendental moments for the whole humanity (the superb arts patronized by the Arabian princes and the strength of the poets from the 20th century) and the darkness of terrible cataclysms, such as the medieval wars, the coming of the Inquisition and the "last Crusade": the Spanish Civil War. Malaga, founded by the Ph...

Following is a guest post by our entomologist in residence Daisy Tainton about one of the most enigmatic vernacular saints we encountered in Mexico: the lavishly eyelashed Santo Niño Doctor! Oh Santo Niño Doctor! Right my wrongs and Forgive my sins. This is the prayer on the back of a pamphlet about St. Dr. Baby that I found in a church in Zacatecas, Mexico. As I write this, it has not been long since my statuette of Santo Niño Doctor flung himself from a low bookshelf in my bedroom and shattered. Was he sick of me? Was he full of my sins and wrongs, such that I no longer need him? Or should I not have put him in the bedroom, considering his youth and purity level? During the Morbid Anatomy field trip to Mexico in 2014 for Day of the Dead , many of us noticed and were captivated by an unusual demi-saint in the pantheon. Occasionally nestled among the more typical Jesus and Virgin statues, there was a child with dark hair and wide eyes, usually seated on a particular chair with three r...

Following is another guest post by our good friend Michael Sappol--author of A Traffic of Dead Bodies , curator of Dream Anatomy , and historian at the National Library of Medicine -- about an excellent looking exhibition in Leuven: I recently had the privilege of participating in a brilliant three-day international conference on “ Bodies Beyond Borders: The Circulation of Anatomical Knowledge, 1750-1950 ”.  The symposium — a smart mix of well-established scholars and new talent — was held in Leuven, Belgium, an ancient city full of charmingly twisted cobblestone streets and alleys. In the central square, the old town hall is covered from top to bottom with hundreds of stone figures. It’s a “where’s Waldo” exercise to spot anybody in particular, but one of the figures is the founder of modern anatomy, Andreas Vesalius (1514-1564). Vesalius twice studied at the University of Leuven (1530, 1536) before going on to Padua, where he performed dissections, gave lectures, wrote treatises...

We Die and See Beauty Reign by Cristina Preda on Grooveshark Following is a guest post in which one of our beloved Morbid Anatomy docents, Cristina Preda , delves deeper into one of her favorite books in the Morbid Anatomy Library: Barbara Norfleet's fabulous Looking at Death . In the course of her interview with the author/curator, Norfleet mentioned that she had compiled a tape of death-themed songs to play as accompaniment during the exhibition at Harvard. Inspired by her idea and echoing a couple of her selections, Preda put together a playlist of her own (above); she encourages readers to add their favorite songs about death in the comments. Looking At Death: A Conversation With Barbara Norfleet by Cristina Preda  Photographer, curator, lecturer, and historian Barbara Norfleet’s 1993 book, Looking at Death , which can be found in the research library at Morbid Anatomy, is a collection of black and white photographs spanning more than a century and depicting a vast spectrum o...

News of this exciting new exhibition and event series which opens tomorrow, January 13th, just in from our friend and curator of this event Lisa Kereszi; following is the press release and, event schedule, and curator's statement: The Yale School of Art (YSA) launches its 2015 season at the 32 Edgewood Avenue Gallery with “Side Show,” an exhibition devoted to the “believe it or not” world of the American sideshow, in which display of the abnormal and bizarre was the focus of the event. On view Jan. 13–Mar. 20, 2015, the exhibition is free and open to the public Tuesdays–Sundays from noon to 6 p.m. “Side Show” presents more than 70 works by 29 artists — including Diane Arbus, Otto Dix, John Waters, and Riva Lehrer — ranging from the mid-18th century to the present. The show includes original sideshow banners, props, promotional cards, photographs, historical ephemera, and works of art inspired by circus and carnival culture from the Yale University Art Gallery (YUAG), Yale Medical S...

  The incomparable Michael Sappol--author of A Traffic of Dead Bodies , curator of Dream Anatomy , and historian at the National Library of Medicine -- recently traveled to Sweden where he encountered the curious 15th century illuminated vellum scroll seen above. In the following post, Mike tells us more about this scroll, and its idiosyncratic anatomical visualizations: I recently traveled to sunny Sweden to participate in an international conference on “The History of Medicine in Practice.” Along the way I got to visit some historical medical collections, talk to historians, curators, archivists, rare book specialists, publishers and librarians, and see amazing objects. Today’s post is about one amazing object: De Arte Phisicali et de Cirurgica ( The Art of the Physician and the Surgeon ), a long vellum scroll — 542 cm (17 feet 9 inches) by 36 cm (1 foot 2 inches)! It dates from the year 1412 and resides today in the National Library of Sweden (in Swedish, Kungliga Biblioteket ,...