taxidermy, creating corpses
that still looked rosy and alive.
He and Lent struck a deal, in
which Sokolov would buy the
bodies of Julia and her son,
preserve them, and put them
on display at the university’s
Anatomical Institute.
Sokolov kept the details of the
embalming
to
himself,
although we know the process
took him six months. When the
bodies were sufficiently infused
withdecay-arresting chemicals,
Sokolov posed both mother
and childstanding up, the baby
perched on a rod with an alert
expression on his face, his
mother standing with hands on
her hips, feet wide apart, face turned to one side. The confident
pose makes it possible to imagine Julia, just for a moment, as
being like any self-possessed young woman standing on the
corner waiting for a friend, a bus, a taxi, the end of the day to
come.
But Julia had a far more unusual story. Her body stayed at the
Anatomical Institute’s museum for only six months, before Lent,
hearing how good she and her son looked, took advantage of an
escape clause in his contract and returned to take them back.
Evidently he realized that Julia could be a money-maker dead as
well as alive. Lent put the bodies on display in London in 1862,
where they could be seen for a shilling—less than he charged
when Julia could sing and dance, but at least now he could display
her for longer periods of time. Again the scientists weighed in:
Buckland visited and said “the face was marvellous, exactly like
an exceedingly good portrait in wax,” while The Lancet declared
the embalming “completely successful.” The bodies went on to
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