Beauchene Skull: Art of the Exploded Skull

An exploded Beauchene human skull

A Beauchene Skull, also known as an exploded skull, is a disarticulated human skull that has been painstakingly reassembled on a stand with jointed, movable supports that allows for the moving and studying of the skull as a whole or each piece individually.

In the mid-1800s French anatomist Claude Beauchene developed this method to display the anatomy of the head. Beauchene would meticulously clean a skull, separate its bones, and mount them on a stand designed to exhibit them at once individually and in context.

The concept of the exploded skull was first introduced by Leonardo da Vinci in his anatomical drawings.