William Cheselden (1688-1752)
Reproduction
Object numberRCSSC/P 46
CollectionSpecial collections
CategorySculpture
Object nameBusts
TitleWilliam Cheselden (1688-1752)
DescriptionSculpture bust by Louis François Roubiliac (1706-1785), unsigned.
Head turned to right, dressed in a gown or banyan over a loose shirt which is unbuttoned at the neck; with a turban-like loose cap on his head, revealing his hair at his right temple.
Cheselden was admitted to the Company of Barber-Surgeons in 1710. In the same year he began to offer private lectures in anatomy in London. In 1721 he gave a course of anatomical lectures with Francis Hauksbee the Younger (1687-1763) which were ‘chiefly intended for gentlemen’. They were illustrated with ‘mechanical apparatus…made for this purpose’.
Cheselden also published two important texts on anatomy. The first was 'The Anatomy of the Human Body', published in 1713. It was followed in 1733 by 'Osteographia, or the Anatomy of Bones'. In 1718 Cheselden was appointed an assistant surgeon at St Thomas' Hospital, where he became full surgeon in 1719. He was also one of the surgeons to St George's Hospital when it was founded in 1733. He retired from St Thomas' in 1738 and moved to the Chelsea Hospital. In 1744 he was elected as a Warden of the Company of Barber-Surgeons, where he played a role in the dissolution of the Barber-Surgeons' Company and the creation of the independent Company of Surgeons in 1745.
Production date 1752
Artist
Sitter/subject
presented
Physical Location
Location
Not on public display: contact museum for access conditions
Physical Information
Physical descriptionPainted plaster, height 61cm.
Dimensions
whole height: 700 mm
whole width: 480 mm
whole width: 480 mm
