Lesson of anatomy of Doctor Tulp

The lesson of anatomy of Doctor Tulp (1593-1674) is a Oil-base paint on fabric of 162 X 216 cm carried out by Rembrandt in 1632.

In 1828, the public sale of this table to the profit of the case of the widows of surgeons was decided. The king Guillaume I {{er}} made prevent this sale and gave the order to buy this masterpiece for his “royal cabinet of tables”. One can now see it with the Mauritshuis $the Hague.

The table shows a lesson of Anatomie with a surgeons group near Dr. Nicolaes Tulp. It is the first portrait of group painted by Rembrandt then 26 years old. With Amsterdam, there was formerly, in Waag, a “theater of anatomy” where this table was made.

The lesson of anatomy took place on January 16th, 1632. The corporation of the surgeons of Amsterdam from which Tulp formed part authorized only one public dissection per annum; the body which one used was to be that of a criminal carried out. In fact it is about Aris Kindt (Adriaan Adriaanszoon), 41 years old. The very same day it had been hung for armed robbery.

In addition to Nicolaes Tulp are also represented the surgeons Jacob Blok, Hartmann Hartmanszoon, Adraen Slabran, Jacob of Witt, Mathijs Kalkoen, Jacob Koolvelt and Frans van Loenen.

In 2006, in the Dutch newspaper of medicine ( Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Geneeskunde ), an article is published in which the lesson of anatomy of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp was in its turn the dissection object true. The anatomical provision such as it is presented on the table does not seem exact. Thus it seems that elements of the musculus flexor digitorum superficialis changed position, that certain muscles do not appear and that the white longitudinal structure that one sees on the side of the cubital bone does not exist. However it is probable that this white structure is in connection with a variety of the nervus ulnaris .

The German writer W.G. Sebald proposes in “ the Saturn's rings ” an astonishing theory on this table painted at the 26 years age by Rembrandt. He believes to see there indeed that Rembrandt, far from any real anatomy, painted in the left arm actually analyzed the back of the whole left right-hand man (because of the position of the left inch). Apparently however, according to the specialists in functional anatomy, it of it is nothing.

This table of the Rembrandt young person is a table ordered by the powerful guild of the surgeons whose Tulp is an eminent representative.

The table returns to all that then agitates the world of knowledge and the scientists: the movement. Movement of the heart (it is said that Descartes, then alive exiled in Holland is quite present on this table thus represented… in this lesson of anatomy); movement of planets (Galileo is in lawsuit at the same time in Italy), but also movement of the body, at one period when the dissection is allowed still only in exceptional circumstances: that of professor Tulp takes place only once per annum, and in winter for a better conservation of the corpses. Only then the work of the " manufacture corps" of Vésale, first work of anatomy and published nearly one hundred years earlier refers.

It is true in any case that, if any lesson of anatomy starts initially then systematically with a evisceration, that of Rembrandt which concentrates on the movement of the fingers and the anatomy of the hand conceals a deep mystery.

External bond

Analysis of A.C. Masquelet

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