A Hannibal Lecter textbook murder

In one example of a web forum, art crimes are identified and an emoji of Edvard Munch’s The Scream is used to rate the perceived severity of each offence; as if such an appropriation were not itself a crime. There are endless instances of crimes against art with as broad a stroke as theft, damage and intellectual property infringements. Rarer discussions surround works of art that have been used to inspire crime. Dr Hannibal Lecter is one such individual who uses art to inform murder.

Described as Hannibal the Cannibal, a psychiatrist and murderer, he is one of the most famous and feared criminals of the 20th century, albeit a fictional one.  A terrifying protagonist of novels, film and television, he first appears in the novel Red Dragon (1981), a title which refers to a William Blake drawing.  Here we discover how he was exposed by detective Wil Graham and then incarcerated in an institution for the criminally insane: ’”It was Sunday. He saw patients on Sunday…He saw me right away. We were talking and he was making this polite effort to help me and I looked up at some very old medical books on the shelf above his head. And I knew it was him.’” [1] Wil Graham had made a connection between the medical books, a medical textbook illustration, and Dr Lecter’s sixth victim.

It was the medical illustration known as Wound Man that was Hannibal Lecter’s undoing. Wound Man appeared in late medieval anatomy texts as a chart or encyclopaedic diagram of all the injuries a body may sustain. [2] He then evolved into printed form until the seventeenth century before arriving centuries later in popular fiction. He likewise appears in facsimile versions in the University Library collections. He is a sort of ubiquitous figure experiencing all the blights of humanity.  He exhibits such a prescriptive pattern of wounds and ailments as to be recognisable to detective Graham when he sees them replicated on Dr Lecter’s former patient and victim.

Wound Man from Hans von Gersdorff Feldbuch der Wundarzney, Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons
Wound Man from Hans von Gersdorff Feldbuch der Wundarzney, Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons

 

Depictions of Wound Man do differ through texts and centuries, and medieval versions for example, show bite wounds from a dog, snake and insects whereas the Renaissance Wound Man exhibits injuries more reflective of the results of war. He has been pierced by arrows, slashed by blades and bludgeoned with clubs. A woodcut version for the battle surgeon which appears in Hans von Gersdorff’s Feldbuch der Wundarzney (Field book of surgery) in 1517 incorporates a new technological advance as his bones are smashed by cannon balls; the use of the cannon in warfare developed in sixteenth century Europe.  A Wound Man of the 21st century may well exhibit smartphone related injuries. 

Wound Man may himself have been based on the traditional portrayals of St Sebastian, an early Christian martyr who is customarily depicted in art fatally wounded by arrows. [3] The Baillieu Library Print Collection contains images of the legend by Albrecht Dürer seen by the engraving St Sebastian at the Column (c.1501).

Albrecht Dürer, St Sebastian at the Column, (c.1501) engraving, Baillieu Library Print Collection, Gift of Dr J. Orde Poynton, 1959
Albrecht Dürer, St Sebastian at the Column, (c.1501) engraving, Baillieu Library Print Collection, Gift of Dr J. Orde Poynton, 1959

 

Hannibal Lecter’s knowledge of art and culture is extensive and it is one of the chief motivations of his character.  His murders are executed with a distinct sinister emphasis on taste and artistry. After he escaped from custody, he despatched the former occupant and reinvented himself as the curator of the Palazzo Capponi in Florence. Later forced to flee after his discovery, his is regretful as ‘There were things in the Palazzo Capponi that he would have liked to find and read. He would have liked to play the clavier and perhaps compose; he might have cooked for the Widow Pazzi, when she overcame her grief.’ [4]

The interaction of art and crime is an elaborate and fascinating subject, and the Hannibal Lecter textbook murder is just one illustration designed to leave you hanging.

Kerrianne Stone (Curator, Prints)

 

Notes

[1] Thomas Harris, Red Dragon, 2000, Bantam Dell, New York, p. 70

[2] Julie Anderson, The art of medicine: over 2,000 years of images and imagination by Julie Anderson, Emm Barnes, and Emma Shackleton; foreword by Antony Gormley, Chicago Press, 2011, p. 196

[3] Cynthia Marshall, ‘Wound-man: Coriolanus, gender, and the theatrical construction of interiority,’ in Feminist readings of early modern culture: emerging subjects edited by Valerie Traub, M. Lindsay Kaplan, Dympna Callaghan, Cambridge [England]; Cambridge University Press, 1996, p. 103

[4] Thomas Harris, Hannibal, 2000, Bantam Dell, New York, p.239

A researcher visits our repository

Loretta Smith, Author

Original posted on the Facebook page Alice Anderson Garage Girl.

Alice Anderson in her Kew garage workshop, c1922
Alice Anderson in the Kew Garage workshop working at lathe, c1922, Frances Derham collection 1988.0061, University of Melbourne Archives, OSBA/918

For those who have ever done research, have you experienced the wonder of discovering something unexpected in an unlikely place that stops your heart? I’ve had a few experiences like this through the course of discovering Alice’s story but what I’m about to tell you was the most arresting:

Alice’s eldest sister was Frances Derham, an expert in child art and education. Frances’ archival collection is stored at the University of Melbourne, and I knew from the descriptive list that there Alice material also existed there, as well as private letters etc. written by Alice and Frances’ father, JTN Anderson to their mother, Ellen Mary. Every few days I would take myself off to the Baillieu Library, having ordered a few boxes from the repository—until the staff took mercy on me and gave me permission to visit the repository directly, where I had immediate access to any one of the 100 or so boxes in the collection and didn’t have to walk miles for a car park.

The repository is a bleak single story brick building in a semi-industrial area of Brunswick. Inside is a mishmash of 19th-century antiques and 1980s office furniture. I sat in a room too small for the ancient leather-inlaid boardroom table as men in industrial grey overcoats wheeled out box after box of material. Many researchers had gone before me, rustling up information on Frances Derham, her husband, Alfred Derham, her (and Alice’s) father, JTN Anderson etc. but I believe I was the first to dig around for material specifically connected to Alice.

The treasure I discovered happened to be in a random bag of material containing mementoes of Alice’s brother, Stewart, who had accidentally drowned in 1913, aged 20. There was a photo taken a few days before he died, a piece of red ribbon from his Royal Garrison Artillery uniform—things that had been collected but possibly not touched since they had been put there by a grieving family a hundred years ago. It was in this bag that I discovered two tiny, carefully folded, pieces of paper wrapped around what turned out to be a miniature photograph of Alice in a car. I gently opened the layers, sensing that I was the first to do so and knowing I was not the intended recipient. The writing was Alice’s. Love poems. One famous, written in ink; the other in barely legible pencil, almost a whisper, an original composition from Alice to a secret lover who probably never received them. Alice was 29 when she died suddenly in tragic circumstances. Publicly, Alice was never romantically connected to anyone.

Loretta Smith is an author currently researching and writing a biography of Alice Anderson. Alice Anderson was the first woman garage proprietor in Australia and the sister of Frances Derham, whose papers are held at UMA.

Attitudes to the Ancients

The Grand Tour of the eighteenth century offered a continental education for many aristocrats and scholars, architects and artists. Although there was no set order to the Tour, many visitors chose to arrive in northern Italy from France before making the journey down to Rome, regarded as the pinnacle of the journey for studying classical remains. They would then go to Naples, the city for buying souvenirs. The discovery of the cities buried under lava at Herculaneum in 1738 and at Pompeii in 1748 created a surge of tourists and an explosion of interest in antiquities. Visiting Vesuvius added a new and terrifying experience to the itinerary of the Grand Tour. The fragment of a larger Map of the Bay of Naples (1772) displaying a spectacular eruption juxtaposed with ancient ruins, was designed for Grand Tourists, and dedicated to William Hamilton (1731-1803).

Antoine-Alexandre-Joseph Cardon after Giuseppe Bracci, [Fragment of] Map of the Bay of Naples, (1772), etching and engraving, Baillieu Library Print Collection, the University of Melbourne. Gift of Dr J. Orde Poynton 1959.
Antoine-Alexandre-Joseph Cardon after Giuseppe Bracci, [Fragment of] Map of the Bay of Naples, (1772), etching and engraving, Baillieu Library Print Collection, the University of Melbourne. Gift of Dr J. Orde Poynton 1959.
Sir William Hamilton, antiquarian and vulcanologist, settled in Naples 1764 where he was the British envoy. He led ascents of Vesuvius and as a collector he was best known for the ancient vases he amassed from the region. The Portland vase was the most significant object he obtained, which derived its name from its new owner, the Duchess of Portland who added it to her astounding museum. A sale catalogue of the Duchess of Portland’s collection after her sudden death is featured in the Rare Books collection of the Baillieu Library. [1]

Charles Knight after George Romney, Lady Hamilton, 1797, stipple engraving, Baillieu Library Print Collection, University of Melbourne. Purchased 1993.
Charles Knight after George Romney, Lady Hamilton, 1797, stipple engraving, Baillieu Library Print Collection, University of Melbourne. Purchased 1993.

 

 

 

William Hamilton purchased George Romney’s painting of Emma Hart in the role of a priestess of Bacchus while he was visiting England and returned to Naples with it. The Charles Knight stipple engraving, Lady Hamilton, 1797, reproduces this portrait. Emma Hart was then the mistress of William Hamilton’s nephew, and she was effectively acquired by William Hamilton and also moved into his villa in Naples. Here she found success as a performer and hostess. She began her career as a performer posing as a goddess on a pedestal outside a Dr Graham’s medical practice in England, an inspiring specimen of health, complete with antique costume. [2] Later becoming his wife, Lady Emma Hamilton she evolved her poses into what became ‘Attitudes’ or short performance montages, where she embodied figures from the ancient world. These were staged in the Hamilton residence for Grand Tourist. Among their guests was Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. In his Italian Journey, he described Emma Hamilton as the contemporary reincarnation of classical antiquity:

Sir William Hamilton…has had a Greek costume made for her which becomes her extremely. Dressed in this, she lets down her hair, and with a few shawls, gives so much variety to her poses, gestures, expressions etc., that the spectator can hardly believe his eyes. He sees what thousands of artists would have liked to express realized before him in movements and surprising transformations – standing, kneeling, sitting, reclining, serious, sad, playful, ecstatic, contrite, alluring, threatening, anxious, one pose following another without a break…In her, he has found all the antiquities, all the profiles of Sicilian coins, even the Apollo Belvedere. This much is certain: as a performance it’s like nothing you ever saw before in your life. [3]

Emma Hamilton’s attitude to the ancients was as original other artists, writers, historians and collectors of the eighteenth century who were rediscovering the wonders of antiquity during the age of the Grand Tour.

 

The fragment of the Map of the Bay of Naples and Lady Hamilton are on display at the Ian Potter Museum of Art as part of the exhibition Souvenirs of the Grand Tour: The Vizard Collection of Antiquities until 25 September 2015. They also feature in a new book released in August 2015: The Piranesi Effect edited by Kerrianne Stone and Gerard Vaughan, available through NewSouth Publishing.

Notes

[1]  A Catalogue of the Portland Museum: lately the property of the Duchess Dowager of Portland, deceased, which will be sold by auction by Mr. Skinner and Co. on Monday the 24th of April, 1786 … in Privy-Garden, Whitehall… [London?]: Catalogues may now be had … of Mr. Skinner and Co., Aldersgate-Street, 1786

[2] Andrei Pop, ‘Sympathetic spectators: Henry Fuseli’s Nightmare and Emma Hamilton’s Attitudes’, Art History, Nov 2011, Vol. 34, Issue 5, p. 942

[3]  J.W. Goethe, Italian Journey: (1786–1788) J.W. Goethe; translated by W.H. Auden and Elizabeth Mayer, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1970, p. 208

 

Boxing, Ballroom dancing, and the Bishop of Coventry: Festival Hall and Stadiums Pty Ltd

Throughout most of the 20th century, Festival Hall in Dudley Street, West Melbourne was the focal point for the city’s entertainment business. The booking diaries for Stadiums Pty Ltd reveal an endless round of entertainers, sporting, cultural,  and political events. Inside its dark walls, Festival Hall hosted the Bishop of Coventry followed by a boxing tournament the following night. Billy Graham vied for booking space with the Waterside Workers’ Federation and the youthful, hedonistic festivals of early rock and roll. Stadiums Pty Ltd was established in 1899 by notorious Melbourne entrepreneur John Wren and his associate Dick Lean to enter the lucrative sport of boxing. Festival Hall (originally named West Melbourne Stadium) was built in 1912 for boxing promoter ‘Snowy’ Baker and was sold to Stadiums Pty Ltd in 1915.

Interior of Festival Hall, undated, photographer unknown, University of Melbourne Archives, Stadiums Pty Ltd Collection, 1984.0094.0006
Interior of Festival Hall, undated, photographer unknown, University of Melbourne Archives, Stadiums Pty Ltd Collection, 1984.0094.0006

The recently listed Stadiums Pty Ltd collection holds a large amount of boxing memorabilia dating from the 1930s to the 1960s. There are many photographs of Indigenous boxers who broke through the constraints placed on them by the prejudices of the industry and society at large to become champions. Among these one can see the likes of Lionel Rose in full swing, autographed portraits of George Sands of the famous Sands family, and a cartoon poster advertising a fight with George Bracken.

Portrait of George Sands
Autographed portrait of George Sands, 1948, photographer unknown, University of Melbourne Archives, Stadiums Pty Ltd Collection 1987.0094 Unit 9.

The booking diaries of Stadiums Pty Ltd provide a glimpse into the vibrant Melbourne entertainment scene. Music concerts pitted big band sounds from America and Australia in a ‘dance-off’ style show whilst the next day Lady Baden Powell greeted girl guides in a 1967 reception. The Australian Dancing Championships in 1956 were just as at home in Festival Hall as The Price is Right  was shooting live in the 1980s. In addition to the weekly boxing tournaments, Festival Hall hosted the tours of international stars such as Louis Armstrong, Chuck Berry and Cliff Richard in the 1950s and 60s. Devo, The Kinks, and Queen in the 1980s played to sell out crowds. Today Festival Hall remains a hub of entertainment activity,  with major Australian and International acts continually billed alongside corporate events, conferences and Christmas parties.

The Stadiums Pty Ltd Collection contains material of interest to researchers of Melbourne’s live music scene, sport and the entertainment industry, as well as historic buildings of Melbourne’s cityscape. Whilst the material is open access, some photographs are not currently available due to their fragility. The collection has been listed at box level and the finding aid is available online http://ow.ly/H1K84

This post is an adaptation of the 2010 article by Katie Wood which appears in Primary Sources: 50 years of the Archives.

Farewell to Christine Elias

Suzanne Fairbanks, Deputy Archivist
Sophie Garrett, Assistant Archivist

Christine Elias, Project Archivist, June 2015
Christine Elias, Project Archivist, hard at work on the locations project in the UMA repository. Photographer: Sophie Garrett. June 2015

At the end of June 2015 the University of Melbourne Archives (UMA) will say farewell to Christine Elias who has been with us on a project contract since August 2013. During the almost two years that she has been with us, Christine has been the backbone of the Locations Upgrade Project Team (LUP) which has transformed aspects of how the Archives manages its holdings and provides access to material by researchers.

In 2009 the UMA upgraded its collection management database to KE EMu and a range of new access and collection management functions became possible. EMu is capable of displaying our digitised finding aids online, enabling researchers for the first time to access many details of our holdings without visiting the Reading Room. A generous Ross Trust grant enabled UMA to digitise and expose over 600 finding aids by 2012. EMu is capable of a range of behind the scenes collection management functions as well, such as recording the location of every storage unit in our 20 kilometres of holdings. Prior to 2013 our locations were recorded in a range of inefficient manual ways separate from EMu, so the LUP was conceived and an application for support submitted to the Miegunyah Committee.

The initial goals of the Project were to record location data in EMu to achieve efficiencies of staff time behind the scenes, and to build the possibility that researchers may be able to order material online. The LUP has achieved this and much more. Moving location data into EMu has confronted us with the peculiarities and inconsistencies of old systems and enabled us to create a new set of standards and procedures. It has effectively required us to audit and relabel each box; to identify estrays; repackage where absolutely necessary; shelve boxes in a more logical way; and most importantly devise efficient ways to bulk upload data which we now use constantly.

There are many advantages for staff behind the scenes; however one of the most pleasing outcomes is visible to researchers. During the LUP we discovered many more hard copy finding aids that have now been updated and made available online. Christine was able to create box lists for some of our largest and most interesting collections which are also now available online. Long before computer data bases, previous archivists recorded contents on the front of boxes before or instead of creating an inventory or finding aid. This practice was workable in the days when the storage repository and the Reading Room were in the same building and the collection was much smaller. If there was no detailed list of the contents of a collection, archivist and researcher could peruse the boxes to identify material for research use. This became a major problem after 1999 when the Reading Room and repository were physically separated. It resulted in reference staff travelling to the Repository to select material for researchers. At the instigation of Fiona Ross, Christine recorded this box front information creating close to 400 extra box lists that are now visible to the public. Due to the LUP and the creation of finding aids for new acquisitions since 2012, there are now over 1660 finding aids online.

While the task of uploading box locations will not finish when the LUP ends in late June, the Project has turned around the way UMA manages its locations, improved efficiency and standardised our practices. Staff have uploaded location data on over 68,700 boxes, Christine alone uploading 46,600.

Other Team members are Sue Fairbanks, Sophie Garrett, Rolf Linnestad, Fiona Ross, Melinda Barrie, Jane Beattie and Emma Hyde. The directing Committee has been chaired by Dr Katrina Dean.

So we thank Christine for all this work undertaken so cheerfully and we wish her well.
We will follow her work organising a collection management system for the records and artefacts of archaeological research stored at the British Institute in Amman with great interest. Having worked with Christine we know that, like us, the British Institute will be very lucky and grateful to have her on their team.

Christine Elias has a Diploma in Law and Collections Management from the Institute of Art and Law, UK; Master of Arts (Classics and Archaeology) from the University of Melbourne; and a Graduate Diploma of Museum Studies from Deakin University. She is very experienced in a range of collection management roles, and has worked as an archaeological registrar on excavations in Jordan.

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