SMALL MEDICAL ÉCORCHÉ BUST IN BRONZE

Rare small-format écorché bust in bronze, depicting with unsettling intensity the exposed musculature of the human face and neck. Despite its reduced size, the refinement of the modeling is remarkable: every muscular bundle, every tension of the neck, every anatomical depression appears with almost surgical precision. This exceptional accuracy gives the object a surprisingly powerful presence for such a compact volume.

The deep, even brown-gold patina highlights the quality of the bronze and reinforces this intermediate aesthetic between scholarly sculpture and scientific instrument. This type of anatomical miniature was often intended for private cabinets, collections of physicians, artists, or enlightened amateurs fascinated by the interior of the human body. Unlike life-size pedagogical écorchés made of plaster, these small bronze pieces were produced in very limited quantities, their cost and careful manufacture reserving them for collectors or particular institutions.

Anatomical bronze miniatures from the years 1920–1935 are today extremely rare. They testify to a period when anatomy stood at the crossroads of science, art, and the uncanny — a moment when the unveiled body was not merely an object of study, but also a source of cultural fascination. This piece, with its hollow gaze and musculature frozen in silent tension, seems to come straight out of a medical cabinet of curiosities or the office of an anatomist from the early 20th century.

Since the Renaissance, the écorché has occupied an essential place in the history of the representation of the body. It embodies the desire to go beyond appearance, to reveal the hidden mechanics of the human being, to pass through the skin in order to reach that which sustains life. This bust, born of a time when anatomy was as much academic knowledge as cultural fascination, reflects this dual identity: a tool of study, yet also a true curiosity, capable of unsettling as much as instructing.

Through its hollow gaze and the tension of its frozen muscles, it echoes the tradition of the cabinets of curiosities of the early 20th century, where medical models, anatomical casts, death masks, and singular scientific objects mingled. An authentic, dense, and unsettling piece, perfectly suited to a private collection devoted to the bizarre, the scientific, or the esoteric.

PERIOD : Art Deco, circa 1920–1930
DIMENSIONS : 10 cm × 8.5 cm
SIZE : 4" × 3.4"