Colourful Vintage Anatomy Posters and Classroom Charts
Colourful, curious, and a little quirky, these vintage anatomy posters come from old health books, classroom charts, and movable anatomical manikins. Featuring illustrations linked to Levi Yaggy and F. E. Bilz, they’re full of that wonderful Victorian and Edwardian schoolroom charm.
There’s something wonderfully quirky about old anatomy charts. They were made to explain the human body, but many are so colourful and decorative that they feel more like vintage classroom posters than serious medical illustrations.
This collection brings together anatomy pictures from The Book of Health, including several connected with Levi Yaggy, along with many illustrations from F. E. Bilz’s The Natural Method of Healing. I’ve chosen images with that approachable old-school look: bright colours, clear labels, movable manikins, layered diagrams, and pop-up-style anatomy rather than graphic medical dissections.
Yaggy’s Vintage Anatomy Illustrations
Published in 1898, The Book of Health explores medicine, health and the human body through a huge collection of illustrations. Levi Yaggy, best known for his wonderfully colourful educational geography posters, created some of its most striking anatomy pictures.
His anatomy illustrations share the same bold colours, clear diagrams and vintage classroom feel. Some even use layered sections that readers could lift to reveal the organs underneath, turning anatomy into an early interactive learning experience.
Anatomy Pictures From The Natural Method of Healing
Many of the other images in this collection come from The Natural Method of Healing by F. E. Bilz. Bilz’s enormous health guide was aimed at ordinary households rather than medical students, which is probably why the illustrations feel so much more approachable. They are colourful, easy to understand and often have the look of schoolroom teaching charts.
Some show the whole body, while others focus on the eye, ear, muscles, organs or skeleton. There are also movable anatomical manikins and layered paper illustrations where parts could be lifted or folded back to reveal what was underneath.
They are a little bit pop-up book, a little bit science lesson and very much part of that wonderful late Victorian and early Edwardian fascination with explaining how the human body worked.
How to Download the Prints
To download an image, click on the title above it. A higher-resolution version will open in a new tab, where you can save or print it. The images featured here are from public-domain sources, making them useful for wall art, crafts, collage and other creative projects.
Yaggy's Anatomy Pictures
Pictureboxblue has a full collection of vintage skeleton illustrations.
Yaggy's Head Anatomy
Yaggy’s head illustrations are especially interesting because they show the anatomy in stages. Rather than presenting everything at once, the movable layers gradually reveal what lies beneath the surface, from the outer features of the face to the muscles, skull, brain and other internal structures. Seen as separate prints, each stage captures a different point in that little anatomical “reveal”, making the images feel almost like stills from a Victorian pop-up book.
Side view of the head showing the labelled skull bones and muscles.
This view includes more detail, including eye muscles, teeth, and jaw details.
Profile cutaway anatomical head plate showing the cerebrum, skull, eye, and facial muscles
Cutaway anatomical head and neck plate showing the cerebrum, tongue, nasal passages, spine, and throat
Head plate showing the cerebrum, cerebellum, corpus callosum, throat, and nasal passages.
Phrenology-style head diagram showing colored brain regions labelled with mental faculties and emotions.
Yaggy's Body Anatomy
Print 8. Abdomen 1 Muscle Plate
Print 9: Abdomen 2 Showing Organs
Three-dimensional anatomical diagram of the chest and abdomen showing lungs, heart, stomach, kidneys, bladder, and blood vessels.
This cutaway shows the stomach and intestines.
Showing the rib cage, oesophagus, pancreas, kidneys, and bladder
Bilz’s Anatomy Prints
A manikin is a printed anatomical figure with movable or layered parts that you can lift or fold back to reveal the organs and structures underneath.
Front skeleton anatomical plate showing the skull, rib cage, spine, pelvis, arms, and legs.
Friedrich Eduard Bilz male anatomical manikin showing lungs, heart, ribs, intestines, and abdominal organs.
Print 19. Female Torso Manikin
Anatomy foldout showing three full-body figures with nerves, skeleton, muscles, and organs.
Bilz teeth plate showing adult and children's teeth, molar and incisor sections, wisdom teeth, and jaw diagrams.
Miscellaneous Anatomy Plates
Print 24. Philips's Popular Manikin
Philips’ Popular Manikin, edited by W. S. Furneaux, c. 1900
Gustave-Joseph Witkowski’s Anatomie iconoclastique
Gustave-Joseph Witkowski’s Anatomie iconoclastique
Gustave-Joseph Witkowski’s Anatomie iconoclastique
Plate showing a man's open mouth, numbered teeth, eye, and facial features
Gustave-Joseph Witkowski’s Anatomie iconoclastique
Italian natural health anatomy plate showing thoracic and abdominal organs, blood circulation, nervous system, muscles, and skeleton
Human American Manikin cabinet front showing a colour-coded male body diagram with thoracic, abdominal, and limb regions.
Human American Manikin cabinet back showing a colour-coded male body diagram with dorsal, lumbar, gluteal, and limb regions.
Joseph Gibbons Richardson, The modern family physician and hygienic guide, 1885.
Medicology or Home Encyclopedia of Health plate showing external views of the eye, ear, hand, foot, and leg muscles. Joseph Gibbons Richardson
Blood flow diagram showing arteries and veins throughout the human body. Joseph Gibbons Richardson
Vintage Anatomy as Art
These illustrations were created to teach, but today they also make wonderfully unusual vintage art. Skeletons, skulls and anatomical diagrams work particularly well as wall art, collage material or for creating a quirky cabinet-of-curiosities look.
If you like this style, check out the Levi Yaggy geography posters, vintage skeleton illustrations, human skull drawings, John Emslie science posters, and the wider collection of vintage educational posters on Pictureboxblue, including John Emslie's Science posters.
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