Est. 1857 · Digitally Restored

The DePeau Model

Cabinet of Cranial Cartography. A satirical sitting in the manner of Dr. Augustin DePeau, whose fingertips never met a bump they could not over-interpret.

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Plate I · The Twelve Organs

Sit for a portrait, or take your own fingertips to your skull as DePeau prescribed. The Model will then offer two equally binding readings: the Good News, and the Bad News. They describe the same head. They do not agree.

Phrenology is a 19th-century parlor trick, once used to costume prejudice as science. The DePeau Model continues the tradition as farce: it notices with great confidence, and diagnoses everyone.