Lorenzo Lotto: portrait of a surgeon

Gian Giacomo Bonamigo and his son Niccolò, 1544 Lorenzo Lotto Philadelphia Museum of Art

During his long peripatetic career the Venetian artist Lorenzo Lotto produced two paintings of medical interest, both in the collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The earlier painting, also shown as an Art Flash (qv), is of the physician, Giovanni Agostino della Torre and his son Niccolò, dated 1513. This painting, dated 1544, is of the surgeon Gian Giacomo Bonamigo, who reportedly ran a bath house in Treviso. He also is shown with his son, into whose hands he passes several surgical instruments, suggesting that he wished him to follow the same profession.

GEORGE DUNEA, MD, Editor-in-Chief

Summer 2014   |  Sections  |  Art Flashes