A LATE 19TH / EARLY 20TH CENTURY WAX HEAD OF A NEANDERTHAL MAN

with glass eyes, the skin realistically modelled with stubble, raised on an ebonised socle,

54cm high

This waxwork head bears a striking resemblance to those produced for Castan’s Panopticum, (Berlin, 1869-1922). Castan’s Panopticum displayed a vast array of wax models intended to entertain, shock, titillate, horrify and, somewhere along the way, educate its visitors. Anatomical and ethnographic wax models were displayed alongside taxidermy animals and even death masks of murderers.