2,500 years of nosebleeding in art

In 132 objects of art (mainly paintings and drawings, a few sculptures, and one mosaic) dating from the pre-classical period in ancient Greece to our days, nosebleeding due to different reasons could be detected in museums, churches, galleries and art-books. Children and adults were bleeding from their noses because of mechanical injury, infectious diseases, haemorrhagic diathesis, and drugs. Some artists depicted nosebleeding in a very realistic manner, others represented this symptom in an exaggerated or caricaturistic way. From a total of 132 examples of nosebleeding 53 are presented, including 18 with figures.