Note: This is a PRE-ORDER of a special deluxe edition of 12; it will ship October, 2021.
Also note: Cover image is a placeholder, but all illustrations seen here—and many more!—will be included in the book. The last image is collage crafted from Ruyschian imagery by artist Eleanor Crook. Each edition will have a one-of-a-kind, unique, hand made collage with similar elements.

Morbid Anatomy and MIT Press are collaborating to publish the first fully illustrated and annotated English translation of famous Dutch anatomist and “artist of death” Frederik Ruysch’s Thesaurus Anatomicus. 

Frederik Ruysch (1638 – 1731) is known best remembered today for the simultaneously artistic and scientific memento mori-themed tableaux he crafted from foetal skeletons and other human remains. He exhibited these tableaux, along with his other inventive and preternaturally lifelike wet specimens, in his famed home museum, much of which he ultimately sold to Peter the Great of Russia.

In his lifetime, Ruysch published a lavishly illustrated guide to his home museum, titled Thesaurus Anatomicus. This catalog contains the scientific and allegorical descriptions of the pieces, along with poetry and commentary by contemporary visitors to the museum. Together, this text gives a sense of the seamless intersections of science, religion, and art that existed at this time, providing a unique picture of this type of early museum and the discipline-blurring specimens within. 

THE BOOK 

Frederik Ruysch’s Thesaurus Anatomicus: A Morbid Guide, edited by Morbid Anatomy founder Joanna Ebenstein, will feature the first English translation (abridged) of Ruysch’s landmark Thesaurus Anatomicus. The book will also be a visual treasury of Ruyschiana, including over eighty images, many of which have never been published in the US, including the full collection of illustrations from Thesaurus Anatomicus, photographs of Ruysch specimens from the St Petersburg Kunstkammer, a Dutch golden age portrait of Ruysch mid-dissection, and much more.

The book will contextualize Rusych and his oeuvre via a variety of essays by academics, artists, museum curators, and experts—including Frederik Ruysch’s biographer—as well as an English translation, with new, original illustrations by artist Eleanor Crook, of Giacomo Leopardi’s absurdist short play “Dialogue Between Frederik Ruysch and His Mummies” (1827). A full table of contents can be found below. 

THE DELUXE EDITION

In order to make the book beautiful, accessible, and, critically, full color, we are making twelve unique special editions available in return for donations of $1,500. Donors will receive:

• A special limited edition (only twelve will exist) deluxe version of the book, with ribbon and gilt edging.

• A custom made foil-stamped presentation box.

• A special mention in the aacknowledgments section of the book.

• A numbered and signed print of one of the book’s original illustrations by artist Eleanor Crook.

• A unique collage using Ruysch images by artist Eleanor Crook.

• A hand written thank-you note by the editor.

The MIT Press and Morbid Anatomy are proud to introduce new audiences to Ruysch’s beautifully bizarre corpus. Your support for the project will allow for us to produce a high-quality, full color, mass-market edition of the book that will make a significant contribution, across a range of fields, to our understanding of a seminal figure at the intersections of art, medicine, and metaphysics.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Introduction
   Joanna Ebenstein, Creator and Founder of Morbid Anatomy, Editor of book

2. Translator's Introduction
   Richard Faulk, Writer and translator

3. Artist of Death
   Luuc Kooijmans, author of the definitive biography on Frederik Ruysch

4. The Pervasive Spirits of Frederik Ruysch: A Sculptor’s Appreciation
   Eleanor Crook, anatomical artist and sculptor

5.  The Remainders of a Reconstruction: Visualizing Ruysch's Collection
   Bert Van Der Roemer, University of Amsterdam

6. The Allegoric Compositions of Frederik Ruysch
   Willem J. Mulder, anatomical museum curator and conservator
   of Ruysch specimens in St Petersburg

7. The Macabre Altar: Sole Survivor of the Sue Collection
   Philipe Comar, author, artist curator, formerly of École Nationale
   Supérieure des Beaux-arts, Paris

8. Enchanted Anatomists – From Frederik Ruysch to Louis Bolk
   Laurens de Rooy, Director of Amsterdam’s Vrolik Museum

9. Frederik Ruysch: Philosopher of Divine Decay
   Dr Stephen Asma, Columbia College, author of Stuffed Bodies and Pickled Heads:
   The Culture and Evolution of Natural History Museums

10. Dialogue Between Frederick Ruysch and His Mummies
    From Essays and Dialogues of Giacomo Leopardi, 1827,
    translated by Charles Edwardes, 1882 

11. Abridged translation of Ruysch’s Thesaurus Anatomicus
    Richard Faulk