Three Phrenological Heads
Engraver unknown, 19th century
$165
Print check at 16 x 16 in: 157 dpi, good. Trimmed 3.4% to the shape of the print.
Shipping to a US address: $24.80 for this piece, from the print room in Charlotte, North Carolina.
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Three heads — one facing front, one turned in profile, one a bare cranium lifted like a lid — each partitioned into the numbered organs of the phrenologist's map, with a half-length figure in a high-collared coat set among them — cut as a wood engraving, the cheap workhorse of nineteenth-century illustration, so the scheme could be reproduced in every handbook and periodical that wanted it. Phrenology was false. What the plate records is the confidence: a discredited idea set out with the tidy authority of real anatomy, sold as self-knowledge to a whole century. We keep it as a specimen in the history of how people have tried to read themselves.
- Maker
- Engraver unknown
- Date
- 19th century
- Medium of the original
- Engraving
- Original held by
- Wellcome Collection, London
- Credit
- Wellcome Collection, London
- Rights
- Public domain, verified
- Catalogue number
- PA-00473
| Picture | 16 x 16 in |
|---|---|
| Outside size | 17.6 x 17.6 in |
| Depth | 0.9 in (22 mm) |
| Weight | [[REAL PROOF NEEDED: shipped weight per size and frame]] |
| Hanging | [[REAL PROOF NEEDED: hanging hardware Prodigi fits to this frame]] |
| Material | Enhanced matte art paper, 200 gsm; acrylic glazing |
| Made in | Charlotte, North Carolina, by Prodigi |
Before a size goes on sale, the file is measured against it: pixels per inch at that size, how much of the picture a crop would lose, tone and sharpness. A size that fails is not offered, so there is nothing to choose wrong.
| Size | dpi | Grade | How it fits |
|---|---|---|---|
| 16 x 16 in | 157 | Good | Trimmed 3.4% |
| Size | Why |
|---|---|
| 20 x 20 in | 125 dpi; a historical scan is never enlarged |
| 30 x 30 in | 83 dpi; a historical scan is never enlarged |
- Scanned
- 2026-10-07
- Master file
- 2,512 x 2,600 px, srgb
- Tone
- Darks 37, lights 199 of 255; 0% clipped light, 0% clipped dark
- Colour
- 0% vivid
- Sharpness
- 26.64
- Notes
- Neutrals lean warm (yellow): the paper and varnish of the original, kept as scanned
Shipping for this piece to a US address is $24.80, the print room’s own rate, charged per piece. Checkout shows the total before you pay.
Every piece is printed after you order it, in Charlotte, North Carolina, and ships from there. For now we ship to US addresses only.
A piece that arrives damaged, misprinted or in the wrong size is replaced at our cost. The details: shipping and returns and replacements.
The Hermetica
The esoteric tradition’s emblems, astrological figures and the old charts of palmistry and phrenology.
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