White porcelain phrenology head marked on... - Lot 401 - Vasari Auction

Lot 401
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60 - 80 EUR
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Result : 55EUR
White porcelain phrenology head marked on... - Lot 401 - Vasari Auction
White porcelain phrenology head marked on the front at the base "Phrenology by L.N. Fowler" and on the reverse "Zeewolde NL, Eugene, Or USA", the head has an annotated cutout of the words identifying the emotions and separate areas of the brain. It is marked "Entered at Statiooners Hall" on one side and "L.N. Fowler Ludgate Circus London" on the other. The reverse side presents a brief explanation of L.N. Fowler's work. Height : 28,5 cm Height : 28,5 cm Note : A similar bust is kept in the Flaubert Museum and History of Medicine Note : Phrenology is a pseudo-science which allows to characterize the intellectual and moral faculties of individuals by palpating the relief of the skull. In the 19th century, it was taught as a medical discipline and was included in the encyclopedia of medical sciences published in 1836. Its development in Europe is due to Dr. Franz GALL (1758-1828), an Austrian physician who emigrated to France in 1807 and became a naturalized French citizen in 1819. It crossed the Atlantic in the 19th century, exploited by the brothers Orson Squire and Lorenzo Nice Fowler who created, in New York, in 1842, a phrenological repository offering casts of skulls, phrenological busts (like the one donated to the Museum) and books, as well as phrenological examinations. OS and LN Fowler also created a journal: the American Phrenological Journal and Life Illustrated which was published until 1861. During the second half of the 19th century, phrenology was strongly opposed and collapsed when Paul Broca, in 1865, demonstrated, based on the observation of an aphasic, that it was the brain and not the skull that had specific territories for certain functions. In the United States, phrenology did not disappear until the First World War. Reference : GRAAM-NORMANDIE
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