Philosopher Jeremy Bentham believed in using dead bodies for practical purposes, instead of fearing or revering them in a religious sense. When he died in 1832, he willed his body to science, directing that it be used for medical dissection, then preserved for display, difrected by his protege Dr. Thomas Southwood Smith. And so it was, but you know what they say about the best laid plans. The only part of Bentham's body that was salvageable after medical dissection was his skeleton, which was firmly wired together and covered with stuffing and clothing.
But not everything went quite according to plan. The philosopher had asked to have his head preserved in the "style of the New Zealanders," which Smith attempted by placing the head over some sulfuric acid and under an air pump. The result was ghastly: desiccated, dark, and leathery, even as the glass eyes Bentham had picked out for it during life gleamed from the brow.
Seeing as how the results "would not do for exhibition," as Smith wrote to a friend, the doctor hired a noted French artist, Jacques Talrich, to sculpt a head out of wax based on busts and paintings made of Bentham while alive. Smith called his efforts "one of the most admirable likenesses ever seen"—a far more suitable topper for the auto-icon than the real, shriveled head, which was reportedly stuffed into the chest cavity and not rediscovered until World War II.
This "auto-icon" sat in a glass case at University College London for over 150 years. Bentham always wanted to visit America, and that has finally happened, 186 years after his death. The auto-icon is now at the Met Breuer museum in New York as part of an exhibition called Like Life: Sculpture, Color, and the Body (1300–Now). Getting the auto-icon to the U.S. was quite an undertaking, requiring meticulous cleaning, packing, and transport procedures. Read about Jeremy Bentham, his remains, and how they came to America at Mental Floss.
(Image credit: ceridwen)