Memento Mori

Etching with engraving, 1747.

Printed by H. Woodfall for John and Paul Knapton, London, 1749.

A very good impression on contemporary laid paper, with margins, perfect condition.

This rare work is part of the most splendid anatomical atlas of 18th century, The Tables of the Skeleton and Muscles of the Human Body, published by John and Paul Knapton in London without author's permission (later that year they issued an English translation of the work), only two years after the 1st edition was published in 1747 in Leiden (largely at Albinus' own expense).

This second edition is printed in the same enormous format as the first of 1747, with the celebrated Jan Wandelaar's plates re-engraved for this edition by Charles Grignion, Jean-Baptiste Scotin, Ludovico-Antonio Ravenet and Louis-Pierre Boitard.

Wandelaar placed his skeletons and musclemen against lush ornamental backgrounds to give them the illusion of vitality, using contrasts of mass and light to produce a three-dimensional effect.