Category:Ontleding des menschelyken lichaams

This category contains plates found in a 1690 anatomical atlas by Dutch anatomist Govard Bidloo. The following is a verbatim copy of the description of Bidloo and the atlas at the U.S. National Library of Medicine's Historical Anatomies on the Web page.

Govard Bidloo was born in Amsterdam in 1649 and became professor of anatomy at The Hague from 1688 to 1694, when he took the same position at Leyden. He was later appointed the physician of William III of England, who was originally Dutch, until the King's death in 1702. In that year, Bidloo returned to Leyden to take his old position until his death there in 1713.

Best known as an anatomist, Govard Bidloo's most famous work was his monumental Anatomia humani corporis published in Amsterdam in 1685, containing 107 copperplate engravings. Like so many large and expensive anatomical atlases of the time, the work was not a financial success, and in 1690 he published a Dutch translation entitled, Ontleding des menschelyken lichaams, using the same plates.

When this edition did not sell well either, Bidloo's publisher sold 300 of the extra printed plates to William Cowper, a noted English anatomist. Cowper published the plates with his own, English language text in Oxford in 1698 under the title, Anatomy of the humane bodies, without mentioning Bidloo or the artists of the original plates. Cowper went so far as to use Bidloo's engraved allegorical title page, amended with an irregular piece of paper lettered: "The anatomy of the humane bodies ...," which fits over the Dutch title.

A number of vitriolic exchanges took place between Bidloo and Cowper, including several pamphlets published in each anatomist's defense. Cowper claimed, without much evidence presented, that the plates were not Bidloo's at all, but that they were commissioned by Jan Swammerdam (1637-1680) and that after his death Swammerdam's widow had sold them to Bidloo.

The illustrations in Bidloos' work were drawn by Gérard de Lairesse (1640-1711) and engraved by Abraham Blooteling (1640-1690) and Peter van Gunst (1659?-1724?).

Images of the plates in Ontleding des menschelyken lichaams may be found in the U.S. National Library of Medicine's online database of anatomical images. The following is a verbatim copy of the Library's holdings for this work:

Author(s):

Bidloo, Govard,

Lairesse, Gerard de, il.

Blooteling, Abraham, engraver.

Gunst, Pieter Stevens van, engraver.

Title: Ontleding des menschelyken lichaams / gedaan en beschreeven door Govard Bidloo ... ; uitgebeeld, naar het leeven, in honderd en vyf aftekeningen, door de Heer Gerard de Lairesse.

Publisher: Tot Amsterdam : By de weduwe van Joannes van Someren, de erfgenaamen van Joannes van Dyk, Hendrik en de weduwe van Dirk Boom, 1690.

Description: [66] p., 105, [2] leaves of plates : port., ill. ; 53 cm.

Originally published in 1685 under the title, Anatomia humani corporis. Engraved plates later published with text by William Cowper under the title, Anatomy of the humane bodies (Oxford, 1698).

Added engraved allegorical t.p.

Signatures: *6 A-3Q1.

Engraved anatomical plates and Bidloo port. by Gerard de Lairesse and engraved by Abraham Blooteling and Pieter van Gunst.

Letterpress descriptions facing each engraved plate.

Large woodcut printer's device on t.p.; woodcut initials.

Bound in contemporary vellum with extensive gold-stamping.

Selections also available online.

Bookseller's ticker of Frederik Muller, Amsterdam. DNLM