This image is a copy of a rarely reproduced photograph of Santiago Ramón y Cajal as a young man.
The image was donated to the Nobel Prize Museum by Santiago Ramón y Cajal’s family in 2025.
This wooden printing block bears an illustration of Santiago Ramón y Cajal. It is probable that he not only executed the original drawing but also engraved the image into the block himself. Commissioning such work from a professional engraver was costly, so Cajal learned the craft of engraving the image into the wood. The block is made of boxwood, which is very hard and lacks distinct growth rings.
The illustration depicts a cross-section of the midbrain of a newborn mouse. The section is a sagittal cut—a vertical slice that divides the brain into a left and a right side.
The printing block was donated to the Nobel Prize Museum by Santiago Ramón y Cajal’s great-grandson, Ángel Cañadas Bernal, in 2025. He presented the gift on behalf of the family.
This drawing is a preparatory sketch for an illustration in one of Santiago Ramón y Cajal’s scientific works on the brain and nervous system. The image shows a vertical cross-section of the thalamus, a part of the midbrain, in an eight-day-old mouse.
Ramón y Cajal created his images after studying a thin slice of the brain under a microscope. To make the nerve cells visible, Cajal stained them using a method developed by Camillo Golgi, who shared the 1906 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Cajal. After the preparatory drawing, he produced a clean, finalized version that was used for the printed image in the scientific work.
Ramón y Cajal’s images are characterized by clarity, precision, and rich detail, demonstrating great artistic talent. In his youth, Ramón y Cajal wanted to become an artist but was encouraged by his family to pursue medicine. His artistic skill and interest proved invaluable in his exploration of the brain, the nervous system, and its various types of cells.
The drawing was donated to the Nobel Prize Museum by Santiago Ramón y Cajal’s great-grandson, Ángel Cañadas Bernal, in 2025. He presented the gift on behalf of the family.
