Teaching watercolor of osteonecrosis and shattered bone which caused amputation of the limb
Description:
After Astley Cooper's A treatise on dislocations and fractures of the joints (A New Edition, Much Enlarged, 1842), pages 304 and 307 Large watercolor showing two specimens of broken bone that required amputation of the limb. On the left, a piece of dead bone was encapsulated by living bone as the fracture healed. On the right is a shattered ankle. Bones are painted in browns. Watercolor is framed in green sewn textile, with metal grommets in each of the four corners.
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Notes:
Henry Jacob Bigelow employed artist Oscar Wallis exclusively from 1848 - 1854 to paint a series of large teaching watercolors to illustrate Bigelow's lectures at Harvard Medical School. Wallis painted the teaching diagrams from local subjects and from the atlases of established medical authorities. The effort cost Bigelow $6,000. In 1890 Bigelow presented the watercolors to Reginald H. Fitz to be used in the Harvard Medical School's Department of Anatomy. The watercolors were transferred into the Warren Anatomical Museum between 1890 and 1930.
