Study, Charité, Berlin

This photograph, taken at the pathology studio of the Berlin Museum of Medical History at Charité Hospital, shows a display of moulages—three–dimensional hand–painted wax molds of diseased, injured, or malformed body parts. They were used frequently in the 19th century, before the widespread use of color photography, and, although few know the craft today, remain a useful educational tool. This found arrangement recalls drawing studies done by artists since the Renaissance. In Struth’s words, the image also offers a meditation on the medical world as “one field of technology, where the different interpretations of existence—physical, psychological, spiritual—come together or clash.”