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The Two-Headed Boy of Bengal by Candlelight
Pen and ink, 9.5 x 7.5 inches, 1998
In the spring on 1783, a remarkable boy was born in India with
a fully formed second head attached to the crown of his skull.
Despite this bizarre appendage, the boy was healthy and showed
a good chance of living a normal life (if one considers being displayed as freak exhibit by one's parents normal). Fate
was not on his side, however, and the boy expired at the age of four from the effects of a cobra bite. The boy's skull now resides
in the collection of the Hunterian Museum at the Royal College of Surgeons of England, London.
This piece is something of a self-portrait and vanitas in a manner after one of the Repentant Magdalen paintings
by Georges de La Tour.
For more about the Hunterian Museum and the Two-headed Boy of Bengal, please visit James G. Mundie's Cabinet of Curiosities.
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All Images and Text © James G. Mundie 2003 - 2018
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