PART 1. Dissection as Theatre: Rembrandt and the Anatomy Paintings of the Dutch Golden Age

In this first of two podcasts I set the political and economic scene of the Netherlands as it emerged from the 80 Years War with Spain. In the period between 1600 and 1700 over one million paintings were commissioned and some of these included the so-called Anatomy Lesson Paintings of Northern Holland showing the Praelector Anatomiae (today’s equivalent of a City Chief Medical Officer or a Crown Coroner) teaching aspects of cadaveric dissection on a subject anatomicum. The genre of painting placed the surgeons and anatomists on par with the burghers and civic guardsmen who commissioned their collective portraits for posterity, attracting the likes of great painters like Rembrandt.