The skeleton of the horse, 1728-33

Jacob Schijnvoet (1685 - 1733)

RA Collection: Art

This unsigned etching was intended to form one of the series of comparative illustrations depicting the skeletons of animals drawn and etched by Jacob Schijnvoet for the first edition of Cheselden's Osteographia, or the Anatomy of the Human Bones published in 1733. However, in the preface to this work Cheselden states that this etching was 'the last thing that he [i.e. Schijnvoet] attempted' before he died, and 'being done in the winter in his chamber without the camera [obscura], it was so unequal to the rest I could not use it.' (op. cit., 'To the Reader', p.[8]). It is printed on the same sheet as an etching by Schnijnvoet illustrating the sketelon of the rabbit that was also omitted from the first edition of Cheselden's book. This sheet appears to have been included in some copies of one of the posthumous issues of the plates which were sold without Cheselden's text.