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HISTORICAL NOTE
Honor? Fragonard (1732-1799), the anatomist, was a real person. A scientist far ahead of his time, he was dismissed from his directorship at the Veterinary School in 1771 and lived for the next two decades in semi-obscurity, until he regained his status as a reputable man of science during the French Revolution. He then donated the specimens he had preserved during the past twenty years to the Academy of Sciences, enthusiastically proposed the establishment of a national collection of anatomical specimens (which he, naturally, would organize and produce), and sat on various government committees for the arts, together with his cousin, painter Jean-Honor? Fragonard, and Jacques-Louis David.
His surviving ?corch?s created during his tenure as director, including the dancing fetuses, Man With a Jawbone, and The Cavalier of the Apocalypse, may still be seen today in their original home, located on the grounds of the ?cole Nationale V?t?rinaire d'Alfort just outside Paris. The small museum, one of greater Paris's most bizarre and least-known, also houses a fascinating display of veterinary oddities, freaks, and preserved body parts. Though most of the existing collection dates from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the original eighteenth-century "royal cabinet of curiosities" must have been fairly similar.
To visit the museum, take the Paris M?tro line No. 8, or Bus 24, eastward to the ?cole V?t?rinaire de Maisons-Alfort stop. First visit the web site at https://musee.vet-alfort.fr/ (in French only) for information, as the museum's hours constantly change.
The Cavalier of the Apocalypse Page 44
