Second Vision, from Mirrors of the Microcosm
1613
Medium
Engraving on ivory laid paper, cut, with etching on ivory laid paper components, laid down on letterpress printed ivory laid paper, and mounted onto cream wove paper
Dimensions
Engraved sheet: 35.9 × 26.5 cm (14 3/16 × 10 7/16 in.); Letterpress printed secondary support: 50.8 × 34 cm (20 × 13 7/16 in.)
Classification
engraving
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
51000
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
This trio (1944.461, 1944.462, and 1944.521) of engraved, etched, and letterpress-printed anatomical broadsheets by the Augsburg artist Lucas Kilian boast over a hundred superimposed organ flaps. The viewer could dissect its male and female corpses as an educational medical exercise or purely out of morbid curiosity. The first sheet, or Vision, boasts male and female flap figures after Dürer’s 1504 Adam and Eve engraving. The second and third Visions display larger-scale images of Adam and Eve r...
About the Artist
Lucas Kilian · 1579–1637
Lucas Kilian (1579–1637) was one of the most celebrated engravers of early 17th-century Germany and the most prominent member of the Kilian dynasty of printmakers in Augsburg. Born in Augsburg in 1579, Lucas Kilian achieved international recognition for his technically virtuosic engravings and became a leading figure in the transition from late Renaissance to early Baroque printmaking styles. His ...