ON first inspection this looks like an everyday map of the London Underground.

But look closer and you will see it is actually an anatomically correct map of the human eye.

The painstaking artwork entitled Map of the Retina has been created by Jonathan Brett, a photographer and practitioner in the Oxford John Radcliffe Hospital ophthalmology department.

Every Tube station has been replaced with a section of the human eye.

It has been hung on the walls of the Oxford Eye Hospital in memory of the late Dr Jo Steen.

Dr Steen was the former joint head of optometry who died in 2011 of cancer aged just 38.

Oxford resident Mr Brett, who has worked at the eye hospital for 10 years, said: “The head of optometry asked if I would produce an artwork in memory of Jo.

“She was the same age as I am now when she died and it was shocking, not just to me but to everyone here.

“Her loss was heavily felt in this department, so it was an honour to produce something to remember her by.

“I’ve had works in galleries in Oxford, the Old Fire Station and Sanders, but this is my first public piece.

“It took many months and lots of work with doctors to make it exact.

“All the veins and vessels of the eye are in the correct place.

“It’s not just an artwork. It can be used as a learning tool too as it shows the exact pathologies of the eye.

“The Underground map is a familiar thing for people to look at, and I was travelling on a train one day and noticed the similarities of the lines of the stations and veins at the back of the eye.

“When you are staring at pictures of eyes all day you find that the veins do make patterns.

“The idea just popped into my head to be honest.

“It has been pleasing to see people come and look and it seems to have gone down well but staff can use it as a visual teaching tool. We hope this is something that people can learn from that ties in nicely with Jo’s memory.”

The 38-year-old photography and art graduate took inspiration from Simon Patterson’s 1992 artwork The Great Bear.

That is a version of the famous map of the London Underground created by Henry Beck in 1931 in which the stations are replaced with the names of engineers, philosophers, explorers, planets, journalists, footballers, artists and more.

Mr Brett’s map even includes a reference to a widely-publicised retinal implant trial being led in Oxford by Prof Robert MacLaren, which can be found in the entrance to the Photography and Imaging Department.

This year is the 150th birthday of the London Underground and the 80th birthday of the Tube map published in 1933.