Artist: Leonardo Da Vinci
Date: 1511
Size: 30 x 21 cm
Museum: Royal Collection (London, United Kingdom)
Technique: Drawing
Recto: studies of external female genitalia; supposed arrangement of abdominal muscles; two drawings of fetuses; the left side of a fetus, indicating the uterus; a small sketch of a fetus in the uterine position; notes on the drawings. Verso: sections of the umbilical cord; a fetus in profile to the right; drawings of the tendons and bones of the right elbow and forearm; seven drawings of fetal viscera, blood vessels and the umbilical cord. Here a fetus is shown in breech position, with the umbilical cord wrapped around its crossed legs. Leonardo repeatedly drew the fetus curled up to occupy the smallest space possible, for he was puzzled that it could fit into the uterus – he states that ‘the length of a child when it is born is usually one braccio [c.60 cm]’ but ‘experience in the dead shows [the uterus] to be a quarter of a braccio in its greatest length’. Text adapted from Leonardo da Vinci: A life in drawing, London, 2018
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