Surgically repaired cleft lips depicted in paintings of the late Gothic period and the Renaissance

Paintings and drawings by Lucas Moser, Leonardo da Vinci, Albrecht Durer, a nd Jacob Cornelisz van Oostsanen suggest that they employed people who had had cleft lips operated on as models for their works of art. Created betwee n 1431 and 1520, the portraits show diagnostic facial profiles with a curve d nasal dorsum, short columella, maxillary retrusion, and pseudoprogenia. T he first medical illustration of cleft lip surgery was published in 1564 by Ambroise Pare. It was therefore late Gothic and Renaissance artists who de picted the conspicuous signs of surgically treated patients with cleft lip more than 130 years before the surgeons. (C) 2001 The British Association o f Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons.