Christophe Degueurce
Eighteenth-century anatomist HonorÃ© Fragonardâ€™s Ã©corchÃ©sâ€”preserved dissected real animal and human cadaversâ€”are extraordinary works of virtuosic skill that have survived nearly two and a half centuries in the Fragonard Museum in Alfort, on the outskirts of Paris. Like the superb anatomical preparations made by the renowned seventeenth- to eighteenth-century anatomist Frederik Ruysch, Fragonardâ€™s specimens challenge our understanding of historical science, Western culture, and the display of the dead. A desiccated rider mounted atop a galloping horse, wondrous demonstrations of animal anatomy: these impressive spectacles of permanently preserved bodies are still on display in the stunning collection of the Fragonard Museum. Intriguing, strange, and the rarest of rare, Fragonardâ€™s Ã©corchÃ©s are specimens from a realm that exists between art and science and are the historical precursor of modern-day plastinated anatomical specimens popularly exhibited worldwide.
Art,Nonfiction
Fragonard Museum: The Ã‰corchÃ©s