The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp

A public anatomy lesson

In seventeenth-century Amsterdam, the Guild of Surgeons held one public anatomy lesson a year, in winter, when the cold slowed decomposition. The body was that of an executed criminal, and the lesson was a social event attended by guild members, students and paying spectators.

On 31 January 1632 the lesson was given by Dr Nicolaes Tulp, the official anatomist of the city. Several members of the guild commissioned the young Rembrandt van Rijn, who had just moved to Amsterdam from Leiden, to paint a group portrait to commemorate it. The result made him the most sought-after portrait painter in the city.

Dr Tulp

Tulp sits on the right in a black gown and a broad-brimmed hat, the only figure wearing a hat, which marks his authority. With forceps in his right hand he lifts the flexor muscles of the dead man's forearm, while with his left hand he demonstrates the movement they produce: the bending of the fingers. He is explaining how the hand works, the hand that was considered the instrument of the intellect.

Detail 1Zoom to detail

Detail 2Zoom to detail

The dissected arm

The painting shows the dissection beginning with the arm, though real lessons usually began with the abdomen, whose organs decayed first. Rembrandt probably chose the arm for its symbolic value, and because it allowed a dramatic central focus. The anatomy is painted with great precision, though a few details, such as the origin of the muscles, are not quite correct; Rembrandt may have based it partly on anatomical books.

Detail 3Zoom to detail

The audience

Seven surgeons lean in around the body, each turning in a different direction. Some look at the arm, some at the open book at the foot of the corpse, some out at the viewer. Rembrandt broke the stiff rows of earlier group portraits and arranged the men in a pyramid of attention, unified by the light that falls on their faces and white collars. The names of the men are written on a sheet of paper held by the man at the top.

Detail 4Zoom to detail

The dead man

The corpse is that of Aris Kindt, a petty criminal from Leiden whose real name was Adriaan Adriaanszoon, hanged for armed robbery the same day as the lesson. His body lies diagonally across the foreground, pale and heavy, his face half in shadow. Rembrandt painted death with a sober realism that contrasts with the lively faces above.

Seeing the Anatomy Lesson

The painting measures about 1.7 by 2.2 metres and hangs in the Mauritshuis in The Hague, which acquired it in 1828.