Thrombus of the coronary sinus in an 86-year old woman with heart failure and anuria: heart section showing ball shaped thrombus attached to the coronary valve on the edge of the sinus. Watercolour by Barbara E. Nicholson, 1953.

Ashford, Middlesex, 1953.

1 painting : watercolour, with gouache and pencil ; sheet 11.2 x 12.3 cm

Barbara Evelyn Nicholson (1906 – 1978) trained at the Royal College of Art, graduating in 1923. She began her artistic career as a medical illustrator and was a founder member of the Medical Artists Association, where she is recorded as serving on an exhibition committee in October 1949. By 1951, she had illustrated G.F. Gibberd, A short textbook of midwifery (2nd ed., London: J. & A. Churchill, 1941) and Philip Wiles, Essentials of orthopaedics (London: J. & A. Churchill, 1949). The Medical Artists Association records last list her, in 1951. In the 1950s her focus moved to botanical subjects and from the late 1950s – 1970s she was a prolific botanical illustrator.

R<ight> auricle, inf<erior> vena cava, r<ight> appendix with thrombus <cut open>, thrombus covering coronary sinus, tricuspid valve, coronary sinus <under> Lettering inscribed in black ink as key, typed accompanying note with patient history describes fatal posterior infarction and several similar thrombi to the one illustrated in the right auricle. A recent occlusion in the right coronary artery and many pulmonary emboli were also found Bears number: 333/1953

The watercolours and pen and ink drawings held by Wellcome Collection were painted by Barbara Nicholson at Ashford Hospital, Ashford, Middlesex, between 1946 and 1951, at the request of the surgeon Norman Matheson.

Wellcome Collection 34625i

Presented to the Wellcome Institute Library in 1987 by Ashford Postgraduate Medical Centre, as part of a collection of medical illustrations by Barbara E. Nicholson.