Decomposing body

This sculpture, a horrifying example of the baroque taste for the representation of decaying and decomposing bodies, has been attributed to the famous Sicilian wax sculptor Gaetano Giulio Zumbo, whose style and subjects were widely imitated in Italy and France. After a sojourn in Naples, Zumbo moved to Florence, where he worked for the Medici family between 1691 and 1695 and realised his most famous work: The Plague. Later on, the artist worked in Genoa, Marseille and Paris, where Louis XIV of France granted him the monopoly on the realisation of anatomical sculptures in his reign.