It’s the third day of #ColorOurCollections, a week-long special collections coloring fest organized on social media. Every day on our blog, we will feature #ColorOurCollections coloring sheets from our library, along with content from participants worldwide.

Today’s Academy coloring sheets come from the works of Ferdinand von Hebra  (1816- 1880), a significant figure in the influential Vienna school of dermatology. Dermatology emerged as a clinical specialty in the early to mid-19th century, and in 1849, Hebra was appointed the first German language professor in the subject, at Vienna General Hospital.[i]

Hebra’s Atlas of Skin Diseases (1856 – 76) was a monumental work printed in 10 installments, with mostly life-sized illustrations, using the new technique of chromolithography, which allowed the artist to draw directly onto the lithographic stone and print in color. The illustrations were created by two Viennese painter physicians, Anton Elfinger and Carl Heitzmann. Each issue of the Atlas was dedicated to a group of disorders which affected the skin.

The “tattooed man” is an unusual addition to the Atlas, being presented as of cultural rather than the clinical interest. Unusually, the tattooed man is also identified by name, as Georg Constantin, a circus performer from Albania. Constantin was a well-known circus performer, who traveled extensively in Europe and North America. He spent time with Barnum’s Circus as “Prince Constantine,” where he also sold pamphlets describing his tattoos (which are variously described as Chinese and Burmese in origin).[ii] Constantin’s body was covered with 388 tattoos of animals and symbols in red and blue. As was Hebra’s habit, Constantin was depicted twice in the Atlas, once in full color and once as the outline drawing presented here.[iii]

Itching to color the tattooed man? Some of these intricate patterns from participating institutions may also be your groove.

From University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Health Science Library: Adam Lonicer, Naturalis historiae opus novum (1551).

From Amguedddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales: Benjamin Wilkes, Twelve new designs of English Butterflies (1742).

We’re also loving Muhlenberg College Trexler Library‘s maps coloring book.  Check out this detailed world map of Johann Baptist Hormann’s Planiglobii terrestris cum utroq hemisphærio cælesti generalis repræsentatio (1720).

References:

[i] Holubar, K. (1981), Ferdinand von Hebra 1816–1880: On the Occasion of the Centenary of His Death. International Journal of Dermatology, 20: 291–295. doi:10.1111/j.1365-4362.1981.tb04341.x

[ii] Margo DeMello, Bodies of Inscription: A Cultural History of the Modern Tattoo Community (Duke University press, 2000), p56. DeMello states that Constantin sold pamphlets describing the “Chinese cannibal natives” who had forced his tattooing on him. In Hebra’s Atlas the tattoos are identified as being Burmese. There is also a suggestion that Constantin had himself tattooed with an eye to displaying himself as a circus attraction.

[iii] Mechthild Fend, “Skin portraiture ‘painted from nature’: Ferdinand Hebra’s Atlas of Skin Diseases (1856-76)”, in Hidden Treasure, Michael Sappol (ed), New York: Blast Books, 2012, pp. 122-26.