Franz Joseph Gall leading a discussion

Thomas Rowlandson (1756–1827) was an English artist and caricaturist of the Georgian and Regency era, famous for his political satire and social observation.

His close contemporary, Franz Joseph Gall (1758-1828), is depicted in this hand-coloured aquatint leading a discussion on phrenology with five colleagues, among his extensive collection of skulls and model heads. The colleagues themselves look like mercilessly observed phrenology cases! An open volume rests on a lectern beneath Gall's prominent stomach.

The three shelves of model heads behind Gall are labelled: "Lawers, thieves & murderers", "Poets, dramatists, actors", "Philosophers, statesmen & historians”. Gall was a great anatomist , pioneering the concepts of localised functions in the brain. He developed the “cranioscopy”, a method to try the personality, mental faculties on the basis of the external shape of the skull. This led to the famous 19th century science - today widely regarded as a pseudo-science - of phrenology. Its principal exponent was Gall's pupil Johann Christoph Spurzheim (1776-1832).

See: Lorenzo Lorusso, 'Neuroscience by Caricature in Europe throughout the ages: English caricaturists in the 18th-19th century', https://neuro-caricatures.eu/english-caricaturists/

Dr Mark Stocker   Curator, Historical International Art   November 2018