Phrenological development of Robert Burns, from a cast of his skull moulded at Dumfries, the 31st day of March, 1834
A phrenological study by George Combe, published in Edinburgh in 1859, documenting a plaster cast of the skull of the poet Robert Burns taken at Dumfries in 1834 for a readership interested in phrenology. The engravings show the skull from several angles, with the rear and side views pictured in close detail. A designer could draw on the stippled, hatched shading that renders bone volume and the soft, cream-toned paper of the plates.
