Plate for the ‘Atlas Anatomico’ (unpublished)

Frontal, side and rear view of an adult man, depicted with a view of the muscular and bone structure visible through the skin. Measurements and proportions are indicated with circles, lines, scales and reference numbers. To the right, the skeleton of a child is depicted in frontal view with its proper measurements and proportions. The whole is depicted on a blank sheet or plate suggested in trompe-l’oeil and placed above a pedestal upon which further perspectival diagrams are added to help the viewer understand the representations. In the center a cartouche is depicted which contains the inscription ‘a mensural ista mensurabis Ezech. 45’ above a compass and a ruler.

The plate was meant for the so-called 'Atlas Anatomico', by Crisostomo Martinez y Sorli. The book, as he had planned it, contained the most authoritative anatomical prints made during the seventeenth century. Instead of solely focusing on the makeup of the human body as others had done before him, his intention was to show how the parts of the body related to one another, and made it function. He used the latest technology in microscopic lenses to study the composition of individual bones and the nervous system and translated what he saw under magnification into folio-sized copperplates, which held more detail than had ever been seen in print before.

Martinez started the project in Spain in the early 1680s, and moved to Paris in 1687 where he continued his work. The project was not net completed when he died in 1694 as an exile in Flanders during the Nine Years War. The copper plates for the book appear to have been left in Paris, and two were printed there as a set in 1740. After this date, there are no further records of their whereabouts. 16 other impressions of his plates are kept in the archives in Valencia, which were sent home by Martinez during his time in Paris as recompense for the pension he received from the Spanish crown.