William Hunter’s World. The Art and Science of Eighteenth-Century Collecting

The collections of works of art and of anatomical and natural specimens that William Hunter accumulated were crucial for him both personally and professionally. Having been exhibited during his lifetime in specially constructed premises at Great Windmill Street in London, after his death they were removed to Glasgow, where they survive remarkably intact at the Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery. The present volume, which forms part of the series ‘The Histories of Material Culture and Collecting, 1700–1950’, is based on the proceedings of a conference held at the museum in 2008. The book is divided into four sections, the first a general one on the history of the collection and its disposition at Great Windmill Street, the second devoted particularly to Hunter’s pathological and anatomical specimens and the way in which these were used in his anatomical publications, the third dealing with other parts of his collections, including his zoological and palaeontological specimens and his library, and the fourth comprising a group of papers on other collections of the period by way of context.