Phrenology Bust

Rare and original large porcelain antique phrenological bust, twelve inches tall, c. 1860s. The piece certainly activates the “Sense of the Terrific” bump on my skull. I have had several smaller chalkware versions over the years, but never a large authentic porcelain example. Modern imitation ceramic heads aping this model have been reproduced ad nauseam and in poor facsimile, but this is a genuine Fowler cranium, as scarce as a living phrenologist.

Phrenologists believed that the skull takes its shape from the brain, and the surface of the skull can be read as an accurate index of psychological aptitudes and tendencies. Here, our demarcated porcelain skull maps out the functions of the brain devoted to Selfish Sentiments, Solicitude, Vitativeness, Desire for Liquids, Blandness, Mirthfulness, and so on. The iconic bust was the brainchild of Lorenzo Niles Fowler (1811-96), an American phrenologist who established the Fowler Institute in London in 1863. In England, Fowler and his family gave practical instruction on phrenology and conducted thousands of readings and character analyses for a fee. Already discredited as a pseudo-science beginning in the 1840s, Fowler championed phrenology until his death in 1896, and as the founder of the British Phrenological Association, his legacy endured until the organization’s dissolution in 1967.