Two dissected women

Two paintings in a set of twelve painted by Jacques-Fabien Gautier d'Agoty (c.1717-c.1785). There was a family of artists called Gautier d'Agoty, of which Jacques-Fabien was the first.

He became well known for his part in the development of colour printing: in association with anatomists such as Pierre Tarin and Joseph-Guichard Duverney, he published some of the first colour prints of anatomical and natural historical subjects. He also painted two sets of twelve anatomical figures in 1765 as models for his lifesize colour prints. One set of the paintings was produced for the Académie de Dijon and the other he took to Paris to serve as models in making the prints. The latter set is presumed to be the set of twelve now in the Wellcome Library: they were bought in Paris by Henry Wellcome in 1914.

In these two paintings from a set held by the Wellcome Library, the standing figure is similar to that traditionally given in fine art to Maenads, the drunken women who dance after the Greek wine-god, Bacchus and raise their arms to shake musical instruments. The seated woman's pose is similar to that of the Virgin in paintings of the Virgin and Child.