The Real Mary King’s Close - Plague doctor statue

Take a look at our most recent statue, assembled and finished here at the Designworks Modelshop! Commissioned by ‘The Real Mary King’s Close’; an interactive museum tour, showcasing Edinburgh’s dappled history, frozen in time!

The statue, made to look like real bronze, is a spookily realistic representation of a 17th century ‘Plague Doctor’. A ghoulish physician tasked with treating victims of the bubonic plaque and other epidemics across Europe. With protective clothing covering them from head to toe, a Plague Doctor also wore an iconic beak-like mask. This creepy adornment would have been filled with herbs, spices and flowers in a attempt to ‘cancel out’ any airborne pathogens. It brings a slightly different definition to ‘wearing a mask in public’, a phrase we are all too familiar with today.

Provided with a brief and some useful reference imagery, our Modelshop team set out fabricating the statue. The statue was initially constructed using an apposable manakin to form the ‘skeleton’, before real clothing was added and hardened using polyurethane resin. The beak was hand sculpted using a combination of materials, with stitching applied to add a level of realism and detail.

Once fully assembled and hardened a bronze paint was applied to make the statue look as though it had been cast in a foundry. The paint was then finally weathered and distressed, adding contrast and making our doctor look as though he had been watching over Edinburgh’s Royal Mile for centuries!

If you’re on Instagram, have a look at how visitors have been enjoying the statue on The Real Mark King’s Close’s Story here.

If you need a spooky statue of a medieval physician creating, or even something a bit less creepy, let us know below!