Explanation of the New Physiognomical System of the Brain Print
Item
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Title
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Explanation of the New Physiognomical System of the Brain Print
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Rights
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The British Museum, England. © The Trustees of the British Museum. Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence.
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Creator
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Unknown
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Date
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ca 1818
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Description
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This print is made of faded, poorly-printed black ink on off-white paper. It reads at the top "Explanation of the New Physiognomical System of the Brain according to Drs Gall & Spurzheim," and underneath depicts three brains and two skulls at front-on and profile angles, matching with text below. Figure 1 shows the brain from top-down. Figures 2 and 3 show the skull from front-on and profile views, identifying various bones of the skull. Figure 4 shows a profile view of the brain and identifies various organs. Figure 5 shows a profile view of the brain and identifies areas related to personality traits in phrenology. The five following figures show these areas of the brain in more detail, as well as identifying them in a horse and a dog, alongside a reference list to define the traits. The three following figures are example portraits to demonstrate further, including William Shakespeare. At the bottom there is an index of all personality traits involved, and the page is framed with fleur de lis.
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Format
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Print. 27.7 x 17.9 cm.
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Language
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English.
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Publisher
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The British Museum.
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Contributor
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Aiden Lucier
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Identifier
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The British Museum. 1914,0520.679.
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Subject
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Print; phrenology; woodcut; letterpress; skulls; pseudoscience; brain; brain diagram; skull diagram; phrenology diagram
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Source
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Jpg file. The British Museum. 11/9/2025. https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/image/433965001.
