Anyone know the origin of this painting featured on the front page of Eunuch.org website? Was it featured in some medical book?

XXX (imported) wrote: Thu Nov 27, 2003 11:00 pm Anyone know the origin of this painting featured on the front page of Eunuch.org website? Was it featured in some medical book?

It comes from the Piotr (Peter) O. Scholz book "Eunuchs & Castrati, A Cultural History". A good read, although Scholz gets a bit dry and rambling from time to time. If you'd like a higher res scan of it, let me know.

I went off line to go find my copy of the book, but here's what I wrote before coming back and finding Paolo's comment:

The painting was used as the cover illustration for Piotr Scholz’s book Eunuchs and Castrati: A Cultural History (Princeton, NJ: Markus Wiener Publishers, 2001). The book is translated from an original German edition (titled Der entmannte Eros) published in 1999.

I have not seen the German original, so I do not know if it used the same cover. The painting is attributed as a book illustration from Practica Copiosa by Caspar Stromayr, published 1559. Scholtz did not list the book in his bibliography, and I have not yet been able to find a copy.

Scholz’s book is interesting, but not up to the academic standard that I would have expected from one of the better Egyptologists. I was surprised, for example, that nowhere in the book does he mention the controversy over whether or not the ancient Egyptians used eunuchs – and his academic publications are otherwise all on ancient Egypt!

Thanks for the info.

titled Der entmannte Eros

Amazon.com had this book listed as "Eunuchs & Castrati, the Emasculation of Eros" by Scholz, at the same time as "...A Cultural History." It appeared that there were to be 2 books. I ordered both, I got "...Cultural...". They said the other was held up in printing, and not yet available, their mistake. It seems that they were confused, and these are in fact the same book; "...Eros" was not published in English, that I know of, so "...Cultural..." is it.

I don't see the title of "...Eros" fitting the book, however. There's not that much in there about eunuchs as lovers, etc.

Now that is fascinating. I will have to order the book. Further with the commentary you guys gave, the eunuch as lovers does intrigue me.