A Marble Embryo: Meanings of a Portrait from 1900

Portraits of scientists use attributes of discovery to construct identities; portraits that include esoteric accessories may fashion identities for these too. A striking example is a marble bust of the anatomist Wilhelm His by the Leipzig sculptor Carl Seffner. Made in 1900, it depicts the founder of modern human embryology looking down at a model embryo in his right hand. This essay reconstructs the design and viewing of this remarkable portrait in order to shed light on private and public relations between scientists, research objects and audiences. The bust came out of a collaboration to model the face of the composer Johann Sebastian Bach and embodies a shared commitment to anatomical exactitude in three dimensions. His’s research agendas and public character explain the contemplative pose and unprecedented embryo model, which he had laboriously constructed from material a midwife supplied. The early contexts of display in the His home and art exhibitions suggest interpretive resources for viewers and hence likely meanings. Seffner’s work remains exceptional, but has affinities to portraits of human embryologists and embryos produced since 1960. Embryo images have acquired such controversial prominence that the model may engage us more strongly now than it did exhibition visitors around 1900.