She was once considered the most beautiful woman of the 19th century: Empress Elisabeth of Austria, better known by the wider public as ‘Sisi.’ With hair down to her feet, a waist of 50 centimeters and the tall height of 172 centimeters, she stood out amongst her contemporaries and her physique gained an immense popularity […]
Tag: Museum
Please think of the children!
Throughout history humanity has had to face numerous threats to its existence. While many of these were man-made, mother nature itself can be a cruel mistress indeed. Perhaps there is not a more common or longstanding danger to humanity as the everlasting threat of disease. While nowadays it is relatively easy to teach people how […]
Bloodletting: the cure for all diseases
In the past there were limited medical treatments available for doctors. Often the first thing a doctor would do when someone got sick was: cut open their veins. This gruesome practice called bloodletting is thousands of years old. It is also known as phlebotomy, from the Greek words phlebos (vein) and temnein (to cut). Bloodletting […]
‘My disability does not define me’: The prosthetic leg of Frida Kahlo
While many people might recognize her unibrow and bright color palette, most are unaware that the work of Mexican artist and activist Frida Kahlo (1910-1954) is deeply shaped by her disability. Frida’s lifelong struggle with her health eventually resulted in the amputation of her lower right leg in 1953. The prosthetic leg she used during […]
A very ‘skulled’ professor
In Dutch, we say that people who have a talent to learn languages have a ‘talenknobbel’, the same goes for a talent for math: a ‘wiskundeknobbel’. These expressions literally mean that someone with one of these talents has a bump on their head that shows their special ability. Long ago, in the 18th and 19th century, […]
Funeral museum Tot Zover is all but dead and buried
How do we deal with death? That is what it is all about at the Tot Zover museum located at ‘De Nieuwe Ooster’ graveyard in Amsterdam. The Funeral museum Tot Zover is celebrated because of its very unique concept and location. To wit, the museum houses itself in the former residence of the graveyard director/undertaker. […]
Bleuland’s babies in bottles
“Quiver with horror at skeletons, organs, foetuses and body parts in formaldehyde!” This caption at the website of the Utrecht University Museum refers to the Bleuland Cabinet, home of the private collection of physician Jan Bleuland (1756-1838). Bleuland lived in an age of change. The development of instruments and technics, in which the physician himself […]
Gazing at the Rijksmuseum
I think I had to read Decoding the Visitor’s Gaze at least four times before starting to get a sense of what the chapter by Gordon Fyfe and Max Ross is actually about. And even now, I’m not sure whether I understand what their findings truly entail. But I’ll give it a go anyways. In […]
The Proactive Museum and the Public
By Circe de Bruin The nature of the decision-making process conducted for an museum exhibition has changed, observes Mark Liddiard in his essay “Changing Histories: museums, sexuality and the future of the past”. Based on interviews with staff and visitors of local, national and independent museums in the UK he describes the following trend: […]
Sex Sells
By Kevin Schram Sexuality in museums. A topic discussed in the last part of Mark Liddiards research essay ‘Changing Histories: Museums, Sexuality and the Future of the Past’ on the changes occurring in museums, concerning technologies and attitudes towards the past. He argues that questions should be asked about the identity and direction of museums […]