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/inline26.jpg"/> The Painting Almost four hundred years ago, the twenty-six-year-old Rembrandt van Rijn painted a group portrait of the Amsterdam Surgeons’ Guild during an anatomy lesson. This 1632 painting, The Anatomy Lesson of Nicolaes Tulp, is one in the series of anatomy pieces painted for the guild, the first dating from 1601/1603 and the last dated the end of the eighteenth century. This painting is considered a masterpiece, not least because of its refreshingly new composition, in which the traditional, formal arrangement of the subjects has been relegated a thing of the past to make way for a new configuration, showing the praelector and the surgeons in action. Rembrandt’s signature can be seen in the background of the composition.
