Musculorum Tabula III

Very rare first edition, published Leyden 1747, of Jan Wandelaar (1690-1759) famous anatomy engraving, from Bernhard Siegfried Albinus (1697-1770), Tabulae sceleti et musculorum corporis humani. 

Note this is the first edition 1747 and not the much more common English edition of the engravings published by Paul Knapton, Titled, Tables of the skeleton and muscles of the human body, London 1749. The later English edition is identified by the following contained in the publication line at the bottom of each engraving : Londini:: Typis H. Woodfall. Impensis Johannis Et Pauli Knapton., M.DCC.XLIX.

Elephant folio size engraved plate from the largest and most sumptuous anatomical series ever made. The plates were designed and engraved by Jan Wandelaar (1690-1759) and  are considered to be the most artistic and accurate representations of the human body that were ever made. Albinus and Wandelaar devised a method of increasing the accuracy of the illustrations by placing nets with square webbing at specific intervals between the artist and the anatomical specimen and copying the images using the grid patterns. Wandelaar worked on them from 1721, until his death. 

Albinus, the celebrated professor of anatomy and surgery in Leiden, was one of the most renowned descriptive anatomist of his day and the pioneer of a new epoch in human anatomy. As well his own writings he edited the works of Eustachio, Fabricius and Harvey and collaborated with Herman Boerhaave editing a new edition of Vesalius, Opera omnia anatomica et chirurgica.

From: Albinus, Tabulae sceleti et musculorum corporis humani.