The convicted murderer Lacenaire was executed by guillotine in France in 1836, and a plaster copy made of his head for study by phrenologists. His trial made him something of a popular hero as a handsome and romantic villain, and he inspired the character of Raskolnikov in Dostoevsky’s Crime and punishment. Phrenologists pointed out the prominent areas of his skull in places which represented destructiveness (above the right ear), acquisitiveness and vanity. Several versions of the original model were made, and were often used by lecturers as visual proof of the truth of phrenological science.

Object on loan from the Whipple Museum of the History of Science, University of Cambridge, Wh.6510