Gogol, the Doctors, and the Leeches

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1966

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Research Projects

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Variant Date: 1967.
Medium: Woodcut.
Print Image Size: 21 7/8 x 34 1/4 inches.
Print Edition: 40.
Alternate Medium: Woodcut.
Ink(s): black.
Support: laid paper.
Nineteenth-century Russian author Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol reclines on a bed with leeches covering his face, blankly staring upwards at two archaic doctors who lean over him. The scene is based on a letter Gogol wrote to his mother describing his abhorrence of the bleeding therapy prescribed as treatment for tuberculosis, transcribed in Vladimir Nabokov's biography of the novelist. Several preparatory pencil drawings also exist.

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