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Hunterian Museum
Learning

Free entry - booking recommended

Tuesday to Saturday: 10am – 5pm

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Museum gallery with dark grey walls. In the foreground there is a table with a projection of an anatomical drawing of a skeleton. On the back wall there is a large museum case containing four large rectangular orange/brown wooden boards, displayed upright side by side. Human tissue - nerves, blood vessels and veins - have been dissected away from the rest of the body and pasted onto the boards, and form dark outlines on the wood. On the right another museum case contains a bust, a skeleton and two oil paintings of skulls alongside other objects.

Surgery and Anatomy gallery in the Hunterian Museum

School Visits

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Art & Design

From the 1500s, with the increased acceptance of human dissection, anatomy became more accurate and scientific. Anatomists and surgeons collaborated with artists to produce atlases of the human body in vivid detail.

The displays in the Museum contains fine art objects including paintings, busts, drawings, surgical instruments and equipment, 3D anatomy images and anatomical preparations.

Please be aware the 19th Century Surgery gallery is currently closed.

Suitable for

  • GCSE 
  • A-levels

Areas of study include

  • Anatomical, natural history and scientific drawings
  • Anatomical specimens of human, animal and plant tissue
  • Prints
  • Digital books
  • Paintings (portraiture, caricature, animals and nature)
  • Busts
  • Videos
  • Ceramics
  • AV tables of anatomical bodies, videos, drawings
  • Wax models
  • Skeletons and bones
  • 3D models
  • Fossils
  • Microscopic slides
  • Furniture
  • Silverware
  • Surgical instruments and equipment 
  • Teeth
Large floor-to-ceiling museum display case with pale pink outer walls and a grey back panel. The case in divided into three, with objects mounted off the backboard and on the floor of the case. In the centre there is a large oil painting of a seated man in 18th century dress (John Hunter). The painting is surrounded by bone specimens and anatomical specimens in glass jars. Objects displayed on the right include anatomical models, surgical instruments and an oil painting. Objects displayed on the right include two large articulated birds, an oil painting and various natural history specimens in glass jars.

Hunterian Museum Entrance Display

A museum case containing four large rectangular orange/brown wooden boards, displayed upright side by side. Human tissue - nerves, blood vessels and veins - have been dissected away from the rest of the body and pasted onto the boards, and form dark outlines on the wood.

Evelyn Tables, Surgery and Anatomy Gallery

A drawing of a dissection room; there are two bodies laid out on tables, with bewigged men in 18th century dress gathered round each table. In the foreground a third body is laying in a box, with a man kneeling over them. On the left of the image two skeletons are hung from the wall. On the right of the image in the background there is a further skeleton. The room has a glass skylight. The drawings colours are muted browns and greys.

The Dissecting Room by Thomas Rowlandson, Making of a Surgeon Gallery

A view through a doorway in a museum. Either side of the doorway there are displays of potted specimens. Through the doorway there is an oil painting of a man, a model of a cross section of a house, and further museum cases in the distance.

Leicester Square and Long Gallery

Museum gallery with light grey walls. In the foreground there is a glass museum case, which sits in front of a painting of a surgical scene. Through a doorway there is a large scale projection of an operating room.

Modern Surgery Gallery

A museum display in tiers, separated by rails. In the foreground a museum case contains a bust, a skeleton and two oil paintings of skulls alongside other objects.

Surgery and Anatomy Gallery

RCSEng and John Hunter collections can be found at ART UK

To explore the collection