The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp

A public anatomy lesson in Amsterdam

In January 1632, Dr Nicolaes Tulp, a leading Amsterdam surgeon, gave a public dissection of the body of an executed criminal, Aris Kindt. The Amsterdam Guild of Surgeons commissioned a group portrait of the occasion from the young Rembrandt, then only twenty-five.

The painting made his name in Amsterdam. It belongs to the Mauritshuis in The Hague.

Dr Tulp explains

Tulp sits at the right in a broad black hat, the only figure who wears one, a sign of his rank. With his left hand he demonstrates a gesture, while his right holds forceps lifting the muscles of the arm.

The muscles of the hand

Unusually, the dissection begins with the forearm rather than the abdomen. Tulp shows the muscles and tendons that flex the fingers, while demonstrating the movement with his own hand. Some details of the anatomy are not entirely accurate, but the effect is vivid.

Surgeons who paid to be painted

Seven guild members lean in, each paying to appear in the picture. Rembrandt varied their poses and expressions: some stare at the arm, some at the book, one at the viewer. A group portrait became a lively scene.

At the lower right, a large open book, probably an anatomy treatise, rests at the corpse’s feet.

Anatomy lessons in seventeenth-century Amsterdam

In the Dutch Republic, public dissections were held once a year, usually in winter when the cold slowed the decay of the body. The body was always that of an executed criminal. The lessons took place in an anatomy theatre, and members of the public could buy tickets to watch. They were part science, part civic ceremony.

The Amsterdam Guild of Surgeons regularly commissioned group portraits of its members, often showing an anatomy lesson. These paintings hung in the guild’s meeting room. Rembrandt’s picture follows that tradition but brings it to life in a new way.

A new kind of group portrait

Earlier group portraits often lined up the members in neat rows, each face equally visible. Rembrandt arranged the surgeons as if they were really watching the lesson. Some lean forward to see better, some look at the book at the foot of the table, one looks out at us. The result is a scene, not a row of portraits.

The names of the surgeons were added later on the sheet held by one of them. The list confirms that the men in the picture were real guild members who paid to be included.

Why start with the arm?

Real dissections began with the abdomen, because the internal organs decay first. Rembrandt shows Tulp dissecting the forearm instead. The choice may be symbolic: the hand was seen as the instrument that set humans apart, and the great anatomist Andreas Vesalius had been shown with a dissected arm in his famous book of 1543.

Tulp demonstrates how the muscles move the fingers, and he raises his own left hand to show the same movement. Studies of the painting suggest Rembrandt may have based the anatomy on a book illustration rather than the body itself, since some details are not quite accurate.

Light on the body

The pale corpse lies diagonally across the picture, lit by strong light. The surgeons’ faces glow above their black clothes and white collars. Rembrandt uses light to guide our eye: from the body, to Tulp’s hands, to the faces of the watchers.

This dramatic contrast of light and dark, called chiaroscuro, would become Rembrandt’s signature. Here, at the start of his Amsterdam career, it is already confident and powerful.

Where to see it

The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Nicolaes Tulp hangs in the Mauritshuis in The Hague, which also holds Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring. Our hand-painted oil reproduction follows this composition. For more great group and single portraits, explore our famous portraits.

Questions about The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Nicolaes Tulp

Who was the corpse?

Aris Kindt, an executed criminal, dissected in January 1632.

Where is it?

Mauritshuis, The Hague.

Who commissioned it?

The Amsterdam Guild of Surgeons.

How large is it?

169.5 × 216.5 centimetres, oil on canvas.

Who was the dead man?

Aris Kindt, a criminal executed in Amsterdam in January 1632.

Why does Tulp dissect the arm first?

Possibly for symbolic reasons, linked to the importance of the hand and the tradition of the anatomist Vesalius.

Sources and image credit

• Mauritshuis: The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Nicolaes Tulp
• Wikimedia Commons: The Anatomy Lesson (Mauritshuis)

Public-domain reproduction of The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Nicolaes Tulp (1632), via Wikimedia Commons (Mauritshuis). Detail images are crops of the same historical painting; no reconstruction or upscaling.