Sexiest Art Poll

The Guardian has their own list of sexiest works of art ever.

I can agree with, say, The Fisherman's Wife:

But then what about Leda and her Swan?:

Totally agree with Corregio's Jupiter and Io:

But I feel like they picked the wrong Danae image. 

They went with Titian:

I would personally go with Klimt:

What else?

Ah, so JS, RS, and Jeff bring up the ever sexy St. Theresa by Bernini:

And a recommendation from AK:

And who could forget Caravaggio's Amor:

BDM adds Girodet's Sleep of Endymion (um, YES):

SLSH brings up the Louvre's Sleeping Hermaphrodite:

Back: 

Front: 

Jennifer says David's Cupid and Psyche (so mischievous):

Chastity belts and exchange

For Felicitas:

See HERE for the German text

Triumphal Entries and Nudity

Because I wanted to know more about this picture:

Aristotle's Compleat Masterpiece

Death in Pictures and Problems

In Alabama, there is a high school student facing suspension for taking a selfie with a cadaver.

But this is not so unusual for anyone who has looked through James Edmonson's book Dissection: Photographs as a Rite of Passage in American Medicine, 1880-1930.

The book itself has many more intriguing and really quite humorous images that cross the boundaries of decorum expected by the university spokesperson. 

I was recently surprised by this notion of "respect" and "dignity" being used as a reason for a highly trained forensic anthropologist and her group (featured on BBC's History Cold Case) to bury a rare and wonderfully preserved anatomical specimen of a young child rather than keep it in a museum setting:

Jeremy Bentham's "Auto-Icon"

Wikipedia does a pretty good job of explaining it:

"Bentham died on 6 June 1832 the age of 84 at his residence in Queen Square Place in Westminster, London. He had continued to write up to a month before his death, and had made careful preparations for the dissection of his body after death and its preservation as an auto-icon. As early as 1769, when Bentham was just twenty-one years old, he made a will leaving his body for dissection to a family friend, the physician and chemist George Fordyce, whose daughter, Maria Sophia (1765–1858), married Jeremy's brother Samuel Bentham.^[18] A paper written in 1830, instructing Thomas Southwood Smith to create the auto-icon, was attached to his last will, dated 30 May 1832.^[18]

On 8 June 1832, two days after his death, invitations were distributed to a select group of friends, and on the following day at 3 p.m., Southwood Smith delivered a lengthy oration over Bentham's remains in the Webb Street School of Anatomy & Medicine in Southwark, London. The printed oration contains a frontispiece with an engraving of Bentham's body partly covered by a sheet.^[18]

Afterward, the skeleton and head were preserved and stored in a wooden cabinet called the "Auto-icon", with the skeleton padded out with hay and dressed in Bentham's clothes. Originally kept by his disciple Thomas Southwood Smith,^[19] it was acquired by University College London in 1850. It is normally kept on public display at the end of the South Cloisters in the main building of the college; however, for the 100th and 150th anniversaries of the college, and in 2013,^[20] it was brought to the meeting of the College Council, where it was listed as "present but not voting".^[21]

Bentham had intended the Auto-icon to incorporate his actual head, mummified to resemble its appearance in life. However, Southwood Smith's experimental efforts at mummification, based on practices of the indigenous people of New Zealand and involving placing the head under an air pump over sulphuric acid and simply drawing off the fluids, although technically successful, left the head looking distastefully macabre, with dried and darkened skin stretched tautly over the skull.^[18] The Auto-icon was therefore given a wax head, fitted with some of Bentham's own hair. The real head was displayed in the same case as the Auto-icon for many years, but became the target of repeated student pranks. It is now locked away securely.^[22]

A 360-degree rotatable, high-resolution 'Virtual Auto-Icon' is available at the UCL Bentham Project's website."

Thanks for the heads-up, PR!