Skull and Cast “Libraries”

Abstract

Gall’s skull and cast collections served as his research “library.” He had a large one in Vienna, and he built a second one starting with some of his prized earlier pieces after settling in Paris in 1807, though he left a great number of pieces behind. Since the Renaissance, people had been collecting specimens from the natural world, amassing them in “cabinets of wonder” and even publishing catalogues of their pieces. In the Netherlands, Frederik Ruysch had not only collected a large number of fetuses and human body parts by the 1690s, but had incorporated some of them into artistic panoramas that even the laity craved to see. Gall fit into this collecting tradition with the skulls and casts he obtained from hospitals, asylums, and places of execution, and with those purchased, traded for, or gifted to him by friends and admirers. Nonetheless, there was also considerable grave robbing (resurrectionism) by overly zealous phrenologists in this era, worrying people and casting a dark shadow over his collecting endeavors. Parts of Gall’s Vienna collection can be seen in the Rollett Museum near Vienna, whereas his second collection and own skull are now in the Musée de l’Homme (Paris).