A head containing over thirty images symbolising the phrenological faculties. Wood engraving, c. 1845, after O.S. Fowler (?).

London (Nag's Head Court, Gracechurch St.) : Henry Kent Causton, [between 1840 and 1849?]

1 print : wood engraving

Symbolical head and phrenological chart. Explanation of the engraving: the design of "The symbolical head" is, to show by practical illustration, the natural language of the mental organs situated in various parts of the brain ... Lettering continues: "For example - veneration (no. 14), is represented by a devotional attitude: Benevolence (no. 13) by the good samaritan: Secretiveness (no. 7), by the cat catching the rat: Destructiveness (no. 6), by the tiger destroying his prey: Sublimity (B.), the Niagara Falls: Acquisitivenss (no. 8), by the miser weighing and counting his money: Causality (no. 35), by Newton philosophising on the falling of the apple: Alimentiveness (*) [listed between 6 & 7], by two persons eating and drinking: Firmness (no. 15), by the donkey, &c, &c.". Lettering continues at great length with list and short analysis of each of the 35 faculties and 4 temperaments. There follows a note of explanation on the "comparative development of the respective organs" on scale of even numbers from 2-24; then an advertisement: "Just published, 'The phrenological mirror', by Dr. Bushea, L.L.D., comprising an enlarged arrangement of phrenological developments, and combinations of faculties, for the practical illustration of the science - second edition, price one shilling"

Fourth edition, improved.

Appears to be published for Henri Bushea (an advertisement for his book lies at the foot of the page; also see record no. 27921i, which shows an earlier edition of the same print, claiming Bushea as author). An itinerant manipulator in the Midlands and Sheffield, he preached the harmony of phrenology with Scripture, and in 1841 announced the formation of the Sheffield Phrenological Institute and Anti-Socialist Society (Cooter, Phrenology in the British Isles, London 1989, p. 44)

The design seems to originate with one of the Fowlers (probably Orson Squire Fowler), a family of popular phrenologists operating in the United States in the last half of the nineteenth century

Wellcome Collection 27753i

Exhibited in "Passions and Fervour. The Art of Powerful Emotions" at LWL Museum fur Kunst und Kultur, 9th October 2020 - 14th February 2021