Miniature ivory phrenological bust, Europe, 1850-1914

Ivory phrenological head, with areas marked off and numbered, on square base

The skull of this ivory bust has been marked off into sections and was used for phrenological consultations. Phrenology was a practice based on the belief that character could be read from the bumps and lumps of someone’s skull (and thus the underlying structure of the brain). Although phrenology became popular with large numbers of people in the 1800s, it soon became controversial within medical circles, and was eventually dismissed by the medical profession as quackery.