Returned to lender The Met accepts temporary loans of art both for short-term exhibitions and for long-term display in its galleries.
"Auto-Icon" of Jeremy Bentham
Thomas Southwood Smith British
Jacques Talrich French
Not on view
A secular reliquary and modern mummy, this "auto-icon," as Bentham called it, literally embodies its sitter: the clothed figure contains the skeleton of the pioneering Utilitarian philosopher. Bentham specified in his will that his body be dissected in the service of science, followed by this unusual form of preservation, drolly broadcasting his rejection of the afterlife and allowing him to "attend" meetings of his devoted disciples. After some failed efforts to preserve his head, it was replaced by this wax portrait by the French anatomical modeler Jacques Talrich.
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