ABSTRACT
https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9781003690726/9efc2e0f-c80d-4916-ac2e-5ba6d8471ddd/content/inline59.jpg"/> The Painting In 1798, the Amsterdam Surgeons’ Guild was dissolved. Forty years earlier, in 1758, Tibout Regters had painted the last group painting for the Guild: the so-called Anatomy Lesson of Petrus Camper. In the painting, Praelector Camper is seen in the company of six other surgeons and a guild servant, posing around a table on which a preserved head/neck is being displayed. Whereas in all the previous anatomy lessons the subjectum anatomicum had been a whole body, Camper is displaying only one anatomical specimen: a body part. It is a severed head which has been turned upside down and mounted on a wooden plinth. The dissection table has been replaced by a table covered with a Persian carpet. In the foreground, there is a shaving basin containing a sponge.
