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/inline21.jpg"/> The Painting On September 6th, 1625, Johan Fonteijn, the praelector anatomiae of the surgeons’ guild, commissioned the artist Nicolaes Eliaszn Pickenoy, to paint him in company of a number of other surgeons. This group portrait was delivered in October 1626 and hung in the guildhall of the Amsterdam Surgeons’ Guild. This painting, The Anatomy Lesson of Johan Fonteijn, is the third so-called ‘anatomy lesson’ from the series of nine that were painted for the guild. In 1621, Johan Fonteijn was appointed praelector anatomiae of the guild, as successor to Sebastiaen Egbertszn. In his early years as the praelector, he continued to give his anatomy lessons on the upper floor of the former chapel of St.-Margaret’s Convent on the Nes (see p. 14). In 1624 the guild’s dissection-room was moved to the Weighing House on the Nieuwmarkt, after which he taught at these new premises. The commission for the group portrait could possibly have been prompted by the move, while they might also have wanted to portray the more recent members of the board who had not yet been painted in the years between 1603 and 1619.
