'Santa Medicina' sculpture by Eleanor Crook
Eleanor Crook
2019
Bronze, waxwork and glass sculpture by Eleanor Crook entitled 'Santa Medicina'. Commissioned by the Science Museum for the 'Faith, Hope and Fear' gallery in Medicine: The Wellcome Galleries. The bronze female figure holds a scalpel and scissors. Her hair is looped onto her head, crowned with a surgeon's mirror. Open down the back to reveal écorché muscles, her dress appears like an operating gown, the skirts encrusted with amulets. The skirts shelter a fragile waxwork figure in a glass case resembling a reliquary, encased in glass, under a blanket covered with symbolic pins, and surrounded by flickering candles.