The Musée Fragonard d'Alfort, often simply the Musée Fragonard, is a museum of anatomical oddities located within the École Nationale Vétérinaire de Maisons-Alfort, 7 avenue du Général de Gaulle, in

Maisons-Alfort Maisons-Alfort () is a commune in the southeastern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the center of Paris. Maisons-Alfort is famous as the location of the National Veterinary School of Alfort. The Fort de Charenton, constructed betwe ...

, a suburb of Paris. It is open several days per week in the cooler months; an admission fee is charged. The École Nationale Vétérinaire de Maisons-Alfort is one of the world's oldest

veterinary school Veterinary education is the tertiary education of veterinarians. To become a veterinarian, one must first complete a veterinary degree in Doctor of Veterinary Medicine (DVM , V.M.D. , BVS, BVSc, BVMS, BVM, cand.med.vet). In the United States and ...

s, and the museum, created in 1766 with the school, is among France's oldest. The museum attracted incredible international attention since the school's founding and was a critical component of the school's identity in the eighteenth century. It opened to the public in 1991, and today consists of three rooms containing a large collection of

anatomical Anatomy () is the branch of biology concerned with the study of the structure of organisms and their parts. Anatomy is a branch of natural science that deals with the structural organization of living things. It is an old science, having it ...

oddities and dissections, most of which date from the 19th and early 20th centuries. In addition to animal

skeleton A skeleton is the structural frame that supports the body of an animal. There are several types of skeletons, including the exoskeleton, which is the stable outer shell of an organism, the endoskeleton, which forms the support structure inside ...

s and

dissection Dissection (from Latin ' "to cut to pieces"; also called anatomization) is the dismembering of the body of a deceased animal or plant to study its anatomical structure. Autopsy is used in pathology and forensic medicine to determine the cause o ...

s, such as a piglet displayed in cross-section, the museum contains a substantial collection of monstrosities (

teratology Teratology is the study of abnormalities of physiological development in organisms during their life span. It is a sub-discipline in medical genetics which focuses on the classification of congenital abnormalities in dysmorphology. The related t ...

) including

Siamese twin Conjoined twins – sometimes popularly referred to as Siamese twins – are twins joined ''in utero''. A very rare phenomenon, the occurrence is estimated to range from 1 in 49,000 births to 1 in 189,000 births, with a somewhat higher incidence ...

lambs, a two-headed calf, a 10-legged sheep, and a colt with one huge eye. The museum's most astonishing items are the famous "écorchés" (flayed figures) prepared by

Honoré Fragonard Honoré Fragonard (13 June 1732 – 5 April 1799) was a French anatomist, now remembered primarily for his remarkable collection of '' écorchés'' (flayed figures) in the Musée Fragonard d'Alfort. Fragonard was born in Grasse as cousin ...

, the school's first professor of anatomy, appointed in 1766 and in 1771 dismissed from the school as a madman. His speciality was the preparation and preservation of skinned cadavers, of which he prepared some 700 examples. Only 21 remain; all are on display in the museum's final room. These exhibits include: * The Horseman of the Apocalypse - based on

Albrecht Dürer Albrecht Dürer (; ; hu, Ajtósi Adalbert; 21 May 1471 – 6 April 1528),Müller, Peter O. (1993) ''Substantiv-Derivation in Den Schriften Albrecht Dürers'', Walter de Gruyter. . sometimes spelled in English as Durer (without an umlaut) or Due ...

's print, it consists of a man on a horse, both flayed, surrounded by a crowd of small human

foetus A fetus or foetus (; plural fetuses, feti, foetuses, or foeti) is the unborn offspring that develops from an animal embryo. Following embryonic development the fetal stage of development takes place. In human prenatal development, fetal develo ...

es riding sheep and horse foetuses. * Monkeys - A small

monkey Monkey is a common name that may refer to most mammals of the infraorder Simiiformes, also known as the simians. Traditionally, all animals in the group now known as simians are counted as monkeys except the apes, which constitutes an incomple ...

, clapping, accompanied by another monkey holding a nut in hand. * The Man with a Mandible - inspired by

Samson Samson (; , '' he, Šīmšōn, label= none'', "man of the sun") was the last of the judges of the ancient Israelites mentioned in the Book of Judges (chapters 13 to 16) and one of the last leaders who "judged" Israel before the institution o ...

attacking the

Philistines The Philistines ( he, פְּלִשְׁתִּים, Pəlīštīm; Koine Greek (LXX): Φυλιστιείμ, romanized: ''Phulistieím'') were an ancient people who lived on the south coast of Canaan from the 12th century BC until 604 BC, when ...

with an ass's jaw. * Human foetuses dancing a jig - three human foetuses, arteries injected with wax. * Goat chest - a

goat The goat or domestic goat (''Capra hircus'') is a domesticated species of goat-antelope typically kept as livestock. It was domesticated from the wild goat (''C. aegagrus'') of Southwest Asia and Eastern Europe. The goat is a member of the a ...

's dissected trunk and head. * Human head - blood vessels injected with coloured wax; blue for the veins, red for the arteries. * Dissection of a human arm - a teaching exhibit, with muscles and nerves separated, and blood vessels injected with coloured wax (blue for the veins, red for the arteries). The second director of the veterinary school, Philibert Chabert, was at first credited with, and later condemned for, having extended the collection substantially to include studies of foreign, aquatic, and avian specimens. Many of these specimens were extracted during the

French Revolution The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are considere ...

and redistributed to

National Museum of Natural History (France) The National Museum of Natural History is a natural history museum administered by the Smithsonian Institution, located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., United States. It has free admission and is open 364 days a year. In 2021, with 7. ...

and the École de Santé.

References

Musée Fragonard d'Alfort

Val de Marne article

Travel Signposts article

Taras Gresco, "Skeleton in the Cupboard", ''The Independent'', August 25, 1996

* Kristan Lawson, Anneli Rufus, ''Weird Europe: A Guide to Bizarre, Macabre, and Just Plain Weird Sights'', Macmillan, 1999, pages 67–68. . {{DEFAULTSORT:Fragonard dalfort, Musee Museums in Val-de-Marne Medical museums in France 1766 establishments in France History of science museums

See also

References