More about this artwork:

“I came across an etching in an eighteenth-century medical text book of the skeleton of Marc Cazotte. Cazotte suffered from Phocomelia, a genetic mutation which can be caused by chemicals, such as Thalidomide. The human skeleton is such an archetypal image that to see it configured differently has a very strong effect and seems to question the idea of a ‘normal body’ in a new way. Of course, this portrait relates very strongly to my marble portraits, some of which are also of Phocometic persons. But the marble portraits were of living people and it seemed right that they were of flesh, whereas Cazotte is a dead historical personage, of whom no photographs exist. So it seemed right to use his skeleton.?The finish of the sculpture, bronze covered with glass beads, then lacquered, is like sand held in magnetic suspension. Old and new at the same time, it is like a rapid prototype of a scan, giving a sense of time travel. It also brings up one of the themes I am most interested in, how can one make a portrait of a historical personage, or indeed how can one ever know anyone, and is a portrait about knowledge?” - Marc Quinn, Recent Sculptures Catalogue, Groninger Museum, 2006