{"id":1598,"date":"2009-05-16T11:01:46","date_gmt":"2009-05-16T18:01:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/2009\/05\/torture-as-art\/"},"modified":"2009-05-16T11:02:58","modified_gmt":"2009-05-16T18:02:58","slug":"torture-as-art","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/2009\/05\/16\/torture-as-art\/","title":{"rendered":"Torture As Art"},"content":{"rendered":"

from the LA Times<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Torture devices seeking righteous buyer<\/h1>\n

\"16th-century<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Carolyn Cole \/ Los Angeles Times<\/p>\n

Iron masks are among the items in a collection of torture devices that is up for auction.<\/p>\n

The Tongue Tearer and other terrifying contraptions from the 16th century land on an auctioneer’s lap. His solution: ‘Turn something terrible into something good.’<\/p>\n

By Tina Susman
\nMay 16, 2009<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Reporting from New York — It slices! It dices! It pierces and pokes! It pulls stubborn flesh from bone with the flick of a wrist!<\/p>\n

And if that doesn’t get your prisoner talking, perhaps the ornate chair with its spiked seat, back and arm rests will do the trick.<\/p>\n

The ghoulish throne and tiny flesh ripper, part of a bounty of iron torture implements dating to the 16th century, soon will be up for sale, but on one condition: The buyer must have morals as well as money — more than $3 million, by some estimates.<\/p>\n

His wooden desk and a nearby table were covered with items like the Small Iron Spider, a flesh-tearing device. “This sweet little thing could grasp any part of one’s body and do pain,” Ettinger said, squeezing the small handle to make the eight claw-like legs with needle-sharp tips open and close.<\/p>\n

There were spiked collars, a large ax and a perforated spoon or sieve “through which boiling water, oil or molten lead was poured onto various portions of the body,” according to a catalog accompanying the items.<\/p>\n

Iron leg weights were displayed beside the torture chair as a pair of shoes might be shown with a dress: to highlight how well they go together. The weights were designed to add pounds to the person in the torture chair, driving the spikes deeper into the skin.<\/p>\n

As well-coiffed women walked dogs past the auction house on a leafy, sun-dappled Manhattan street one recent afternoon, little could they imagine that inside were an iron implement meant to be “affixed to the ears before they were cut off” and “a powerful iron foot breaker.” Such were the descriptions in the catalog that accompanied the collection when it went on display in the 1890s.<\/p>\n

[ click to read full article at the LA Times<\/a> ]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

from the LA Times Torture devices seeking righteous buyer   Carolyn Cole \/ Los Angeles Times Iron masks are among the items in a collection of torture devices that is up for auction. The Tongue Tearer and other terrifying contraptions from the 16th century land on an auctioneer’s lap. His solution: ‘Turn something terrible into […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture-art"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1598","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1598"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1598\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}