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Rough Diagram of Face Showing Principal Cuts
Casebook Message Boards: Ripper Victims: General Discussion:
Rough Diagram of Face Showing Principal Cuts
Author: D. Radka
Sunday, 29 August 1999 - 05:11 pm |        | The above-titled diagram of Eddowes' injuries appears in the A to Z, in the section of plates following page 170. My question: Who made it? The caption reads "Police Surgeon's diagram of mutilations to Catherine Eddowes' face", but doesn't say WHICH police surgeon. I am aware that City Surveyor Frederick Foster made diagrams of Eddowes' injuries, but it doesn't seem he could be responsible for the above, since he wasn't a police surgeon. If anyone can help me identify the artist, I would be grateful. Please let me know your source of information.
Thanks!
David |
Author: Wolf.
Monday, 30 August 1999 - 12:51 am | | David, I believe that the drawing was done by Foster, as he drew the body in the mortuary as well as drawing the layout of Mitre Square and a view of the placement of the body on the sidewalk. If it was by a police surgeon, then it would have been made by Dr. Frederick Brown. Sugden writes:
"the appearence of the body in Mitre Square was also depicted by Brown in a pencil sketch he made apon the spot. This sketch, long lost, was one of several discovered in 1966 by Sam Hardy in the basement of the London Hospital and published by Professor francis Camps in the London Hospital Gazette."
I believe that this sketch was the one showing the details of the mutilations to the body as it lay in situ and not the sketch shown in the A-Z, which cleaned of blood looks more like a mortuary sketch.
Wolf. |
Author: D. Radka
Monday, 30 August 1999 - 08:31 am | | Wolf,
Thanks for the info. I believe there were at least three police surgeons in attendance at Eddowes' post mortem, Brown being their chief. I still don't know which police surgeon made the drawing in question. Incidentally, Foster appears to have drawn some of the mutilations to the face inaccurately on his diagrams, when compared to the photographs and the policve surgeon's diagram.
David |
Author: D. Radka
Monday, 30 August 1999 - 08:32 am | | Wolf,
Thanks for the info. I believe there were at least three police surgeons in attendance at Eddowes' post mortem, Brown being their chief. I still don't know which police surgeon made the drawing in question. Incidentally, Foster appears to have drawn some of the mutilations to the face inaccurately on his diagrams, when compared to the photographs and the police surgeon's diagram.
David |
Author: ChrisGeorge
Tuesday, 31 August 1999 - 06:29 am | | Hi, David:
I believe the sketch of the mutilations to Catharine Eddowes' face published in "A to Z" is mislabeled as a "police surgeon's diagram." All of the sketches of Eddowes done in the mortuary and in situ at Mitre Square seem to have been done by Frederick William Foster, the City Surveyor. That being the case, why do you say, "Foster appears to have drawn some of the mutilations to the face inaccurately on his diagrams, when compared to the photographs and the police surgeon's diagram"? I would think that Mr. Foster would be in a better position than us to accurately assess the injuries.
Chris George |
Author: Caz
Tuesday, 31 August 1999 - 09:58 am | | Hi All,
Talking of sketches made of Catharine's facial mutilations, I am disturbed every time I see the one shown in the October 20th 1888 edition of The Illustrated Police News. Here, Catharine is given the unmistakably classic features of a clown, which seems to me in very poor taste considering the date of the publication, not three weeks after her murder. Does anyone know who drew this particularly nasty little sketch? I'd have wanted him sacked.
Love,
Caz |
Author: D. Radka
Tuesday, 31 August 1999 - 10:51 am | | Chris,
Thanks very much for your reply!
I note that some of the facial mutilations are drawn proportionally differently on Foster's body sketch (Sugden, plate 10; Sugden himself identifies this sketch as made by Foster) compared to the police surgeon's "Rough Diagram" facial sketch (as identified in the A to Z, plates following page 170.) The lines are a little bit different, and it looks to me like the latter, as a close-up, was planned and executed more accurately by whoever the artist was. The way Eddowes' body is depicted in the former leaves little doubt this drawing was executed in the mortuary, not in Mitre Square, since it closely resembles the positioning in the two photographs of the body in rigor mortis propped against the mortuary wall, her right shoulder distended a bit unnaturally. Please correct me if I'm wrong, and I very well may be. It is unlikely the latter was made in Mitre Square, considering its relative fineness of detail and the bad lighting there. So it is possible that Foster made both sketches in the mortuary, however I note that more than one police surgeon worked on the post mortem in the mortuary. One doctor could have been sketching while the others attended to other matters; plus Begg et al. identify the latter as having been made by a police surgeon--they may have historical information we don't.
The answer may lie in an older book on the subject. If anyone can help positively identify the artist of the "Rough Diagram," I would appreciate it. It still looks to this camper like the sketches probably were made by two different people, since the details of the facial mutilations are slightly different.
Does anyone know where I may get a peek at the sketch made of Eddowes in Mitre Square by Brown and published by Camps, as Wolf describes above?
Thanks!
David |
Author: ChrisGeorge
Tuesday, 31 August 1999 - 01:13 pm | | Hi David:
I believe the sketch in Sugden, plate 10, and the alleged "police surgeon's sketch" in A to Z are both by one and the same artist, Frederick William Foster. I do not have Paul Begg's "Uncensored Facts" in front of me right now but if he wrote there that the sketch was done by a police surgeon, he was probably mistaken and the mistake was repeated by him as one of the co-authors of A to Z. To my eye, Foster's sketch which shows Eddowes body with the abdominal mutilations indicates facial cuts fairly identical to those in the sketch of just her head. We might expect that the close-up of the head might show a bit better detail and more fine accuracy than the longer view. Not only that, but the way the two sketches are drawn with hatch marks representing her hair is similar enough to show, to my eye, that both were executed by the same artist.
Chris George |
Author: ChrisGeorge
Friday, 03 September 1999 - 10:32 pm | | Hi, David:
To follow up on my prior posts about the sketches made of Eddowes' corpse, I received the following information from Stewart P. Evans and wish to pass it on to you.
The official plan maker and artist for the City Police appears to have been the City Surveyor, Frederick W. Foster. All of the sketches of Eddowes' body, her facial injuries, the Mitre Square scene, and the map used at the inquest were made by Foster. However, the sketch of the position of Eddowes' body, as found, was a copy of a sketch made by Dr. Frederick Gordon Brown at the scene of the murder. The caption above the full body view of Eddowes, at the mortuary, reads "From a sketch taken at the Mortuary by Mr. F. W. Foster 3.45 A.M. Sunday Septr 30th 1888," while the caption under the drawing of Eddowes' body lying in situ in Mitre Square reads, "Position of the body when found from a sketch made on the spot by Dr. F. Gordon Brown."
In Stewart's view, it is seems that Foster made all of the known extant sketches of Eddowes' body (with the exception, of course, of the much less refined illustration in "Illustrated Police News"), although he did copy the "on scene" drawing made by Dr. Brown in order to show the position of the body when found. It seems that Foster was specifically called out to make the drawings in the morgue on the night of the murder, and that the drawing of the facial injuries appears to be Foster's own work, done at the mortuary, and not that of Dr. Gordon Brown.
Stewart and I hope that this clears up the confusion for you, David.
Chris George |
Author: D. Radka
Saturday, 04 September 1999 - 04:54 pm | | Chris,
Thanks for the help! The full-body sketch of Eddowes was a puzzler for me. It shows her naked, which means it could only have been done in the morgue--they wouldn't have stripped her body in Mitre Square. It shows her apparently standing up, which means it is contemporaneous with attendants propping her body up against the mortuary wall such as in the 2 famous photographs, but it shows her abdominal wounds NOT sewn up! Does this mean they propped the corpse up twice, one for a drawing to be taken before the stictches, and then again for photographs to be taken after the stitches? See what I mean? The position of the body in the drawing seems to me to indicate it is contemporaneous with the post stich prop up photographs. Or, perhaps the position of the body does NOT come from propping it up, but is as the police found it in Mitre Square, grimacing and tightened-up as a result of the strangulation process.
David |
Author: ChrisGeorge
Sunday, 05 September 1999 - 05:38 am | | Hi, David:
I don't think the full body sketch of Eddowes shows her propped up against the wall as in the photograph. It shows her lying down. The sketcher was positioned by her feet so the perspective we are seeing is that her head is furthest away from us.
Chris |
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