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(19) she and her sisters—living, wax and even automated ‘sleeping beauties’ in glass boxes—served as alluring centrepieces for displays that were at once educa tional and titillating. It traces the transformation in the meaning of the ecstatic from a religious, mystical experience to an erotic one, and follows the degen eration of the Anatomical Venus from beautiful instructional model to passive, life-sized doll created for men who prefer idealized surrogates to real women, or who have fashioned effigies of their beloveds in order to possess them for all time. It also looks at some of the ways in which artists and writers have taken the Anatomical Venus as their departure point or muse. Finally, The Anatomical Venus provokes reflections upon the ways in which formerly mystical experiences have been sublimated and in which the ghost has officially become redundant in the machine. It ultimately considers why fig. 4 Miniature wax memento-mori models depicting a fashionable Regency-era man and woman with semi exposed skeletons. UK (c. 1800). fig. 4 fig. 5 the Anatomical Venus has come to seem so strange to modern sensibilities, a classic example of the uncanny. Only a little over two hundred years ago she was the perfect tool to teach human anatomy to the public; today she is bizarre—an alluring, life-like female wax model in a state of ambiguous ecstasy with her inner organs on graphic display. Perhaps she could only be truly understood for a brief period, a time when it was still possible for religion, art, philosophy, and science to coexist peacefully; she is a relic from an age in which the torch was passed from spirituality to science as the primary arbiter of death, disease, the nature of life, and humanity’s place in the universe. In her passive, waxen exter nal beauty and realistically represented innards we can perceive a lost attitude to life: one that unifies rather than divides and allows for mystery and incom prehension. This book describes the enigma that makes the Anatomical Venus so fascinating without seeking to destroy it. It investigates her function, beauty, and evolving forms and uses without spoiling her charm, casting a wistful look back at a time when the study of nature was also the study of philosophy. fig. 5 Two of nine wax plaques demonstrating female anatomy and fetal development. Probably made in Vienna, Austria (c. 1801–30). AV_00966_pre-pdf layout_001_215.indd 19 12/01/2016 12:14 unveiling an anatomical enigma