A visual essay by Joan Smith, in collaboration with anthropologist, Dr Jeanne Cannizzo and photographer Caroline Douglas. 

An exhibition in the Sculpture Court at Edinburgh College of Art from Monday 19 July to Saturday 7

August, 10-4. This exhibition in the magnificent Sculpture Court of Edinburgh College of Art shows the remarkable and rare plaster cast of the so-called Smugglerius. In 1776 the corpse of a highwayman hanged at Tyburn in London was made into anatomical specimen, or écorché (a figure with the skin and fat removed to expose muscles, tendons and skeleton), by Dr. William Hunter. The Edinburgh College of Art cast was made by a ‘moulder and figure maker’ called William Pink; an inscription on the base of the cast states ‘Published by W PINK Moulder 1854’. Smugglerius was used in the teaching of anatomy to art and medical students and much admired for the clearly seen musculature, as well as the pathos and beauty of the pose. 

Smugglerius’ pose is based on that of the Dying Gaul, an ancient marble statue in the Capitoline Museum in Rome. The Edinburgh College of Art Cast Collection‘s cast of the Dying Gaul was commissioned in Rome from the original marble in 1822. It is one of several rare first impression casts in the College’s historical collection and it is shown in this exhibition alongside Smugglerius. 

The exhibition includes a series of black and white Lambda photographs of the draped cast, using funerary black crepe and white linen, which interrogate the physical and cultural meanings of his missing skin. It is hoped that the viewer will be able to contemplate the complexities of the relationship between identity and anonymity, the changing nature of criminal punishment and the importance of anatomy in both science and art. Seen alongside the photographs are early 20th Century anatomical diagrams, which reinforce the importance of Smugglerius as an aid to anatomical learning and teaching and help place him within the educational environment in which he is shown. 

Joan Smith will give a talk on the exhibition on Saturday 7th August at 12 noon