Karen Hanmer

Gallery: Archive

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Title: Stiff

Stiff

Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers | bound by artist in 2008 | private collection, Dallas, TX

by Mary Roach, New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2004.

Trade book disbound and guarded. Limp vellum binding in veiny calf (Pam Barrios’ 3 piece technique), packed sewing on alum-tawed slips. Hand sewn silk secondary endbands over reverse bead primary endband. Gilded top edge. Yapp foredge with ties.

Mary Roach’s well-researched and amusing text details scientific research on human cadavers. Drawings from Andreas Vesalius’ 1543 De humani corporis fabrica visible through case. First and last signatures of the book are additional folios of Vesalius drawings interleaved with folios of thin vellum.

8.75x6x1.25”