Paul Williams
Beaconsfield, UK

Hierophant: “A person who interprets and explains esoteric mysteries.”¹

On the morning of 31 January 1632, career criminal Adriaen Adriaenzoon was executed in Amsterdam by hanging. Shortly thereafter, Dr. Nicolaes Tulp—Amsterdam physician, city councillor, and praelector anatomiae (anatomy lecturer) to the Amsterdam Guild of Surgeons²—commenced a public dissection of Adriaenzoon’s corpse. This event was commemorated by Rembrandt van Rijn in his painting The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp: among the most famous of Rembrandt’s works, it has been widely reproduced in a range of media, reimagined as a sculpture,³ brought to life in a ballet⁴ and an augmented reality app,⁵ and has appeared on the postage stamps of at least seventeen countries.⁶

Each winter from the mid-sixteenth century onwards, the Amsterdam Guild of Surgeons held a “public anatomy”—the dissection of the body of an executed criminal conducted by the praelector anatomiae. Lasting some three days and accompanied by a banquet and a torchlight procession, these important social events were attended not only by surgeons but also by the city’s elite and the fee‑paying public.⁷ Over time, a custom developed that select public anatomies would be the subject of a group portrait for display in the hall of the Surgeons Guild. The first of the nine “Amsterdam anatomy lessons” was commissioned in 1603, and the last in 1758; Rembrandt’s Dr. Tulp was the fourth in the series.⁸

The painting shows eight male figures and a corpse against a nondescript background. The corpse, unmutilated apart from the dissected left forearm, is placed diagonally in the foreground with an open book (presumably an anatomy textbook) at its feet. Behind and to the right of the corpse (i.e. on the left of the painting) are seven members of the Amsterdam Guild of Surgeons, shown in attitudes of intense concentration. All are portraits of real people, their names and histories are known.⁹ Dr. Tulp is on the right of the painting; in his right hand he holds forceps that grip musculature from the dissected left forearm, while his left hand is raised with flexed fingers. The heads of all but one of the surgeons “are so arranged as to form a wedge of psychological energies whose thin end seems to point to the forceps in Dr. Tulp’s right hand.”¹⁰

Neither this nor the other eight “Amsterdam anatomy lessons” are depictions of the actual event.¹¹ Seven surgeons are in Rembrandt’s painting, whereas in reality some hundreds of spectators would have been present.¹² In contrast to the atmosphere of “secluded dignity amidst attractive intimacy”¹³ represented in the painting, public anatomies could be disorderly affairs and were considered to be entertainment.¹⁴ The Amsterdam Guild of Surgeons felt obliged to stipulate in their 1605 and 1625 regulations that the audience at a public anatomy should refrain from laughing and talking, and that anyone caught stealing organs such as the heart, kidney, or liver when they were passed around for inspection would receive a heavy fine.¹⁵ Furthermore, as there was no way of preserving a dead body, the order of dissection followed the rate of decay of body parts. The abdominal cavity and its contents were dissected on the first day, the thoracic cavity and its contents on the second day, and finally the head and limbs on the third day.¹⁶ In Rembrandt’s painting the corpse is unmutilated apart from the dissected left forearm; no seventeenth-century public anatomy would have proceeded in this fashion.

Thus, rather than being depictions of specific events, the “Amsterdam anatomy lessons” are group portraits in the wider tradition of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century civic and military group portraits painted by Franz Hals and others (including Rembrandt himself), in this case undertaken to commemorate the tenure of a praelector.¹⁷ But Rembrandt’s painting is more than just another group portrait. It is very likely that the iconography of the painting was devised primarily by Dr. Tulp himself,¹⁸ and exploring it requires consideration of the sociocultural aspects of public anatomy. As Andrew Cunningham has observed, a public anatomy was a social ritual, specifically a religious ritual with the anatomist as the priest.¹⁹ From this perspective, the function of the anatomist was that of hierophant (“a person who interprets and explains esoteric mysteries”)¹ and it is this aspect of the public anatomy that provides the key to a deeper understanding of Rembrandt’s painting.

The study of anatomy in the seventeenth-century Protestant Netherlands was regarded as a quasi-religious activity. It resulted in self‑knowledge, which, while useful in its own right, led more importantly to knowledge of God and knowledge of God in oneself.²⁰ As Rina Knoeff observes, “early modern anatomy was embedded in the theological assumption that anatomy demonstrated God’s divine handiwork as well as His provident hand in nature…thus, an anatomical dissection had the same function as reading the Bible—it was considered an important means to know God, through the works of His creation.”²¹ Indeed, for Martin Luther, prime mover of the Protestant Reformation, knowledge of the human interior was not only desirable, but necessary for the full appreciation of “the providence of God in this world.”²²

The hierophantic function of Rembrandt’s Dr. Tulp is, however, deeper than demonstrating a general association of anatomy with religion.²³ At a more specific level, the focus of Dr. Tulp’s demonstration is the hand rather than any other part of the body. The hand was especially important for sixteenth- and seventeenth-century anatomists, admired not only for its mechanical ingenuity, but more significantly as evidence of humanity’s God‑given superiority over animals.²⁴ The hand was considered the physical counterpart of the mind, as both were instruments for using other instruments—the joint application of reason and the hand was held to be responsible for creating human civilization.²⁵ This view of the hand can be traced back to Aristotle, who wrote that:

Man received hands because he was most intelligent. For the hands are an instrument, and nature, like an intelligent person, always distributes instruments according to the recipients’ ability to use them…other animals have one defense which they cannot exchange for another…but a man can have many defenses and can always change them…for the hand is claw and hoof and horn, and spear and sword…it will be all these things on account of its ability to seize and hold all of them.²⁶

Even more specifically, the contribution of the hand to the creation of human civilization was considered to be through the action of the flexor digitorum superficialis²⁷ (the muscle held by the forceps in Dr. Tulp’s right hand), which confers the ability to flex the fingers (the movement performed by Dr. Tulp with his left hand) and thus grasp weapons and tools. Andreas Vesalius (Professor of Anatomy in the University of Padua and author of De Humani Corporis Fabrica [1543]) described the flexor muscles as “a peculiar and rare occurrence…due to the marvellous labour of the supreme Creator of the world”²⁸; together with the eye, the finger flexors were considered to be the principal demonstration of the presence of God in the human body.²⁹ Thus, in Rembrandt’s painting, the live Tulp and the dead Adriaenzoon are collaborators in revealing and celebrating the greatness of God and the marvels of his creation.

Rembrandt presents Adriaenzoon in a manner consistent with his key role in this task. The attitude of the corpse is one of calm repose; if it were not for his left forearm and his pallor it could be a man peacefully asleep. There are no signs of bruising or distortion of the neck as would be caused by the noose, nor are there traces of the beating and flogging undergone by Adriaenzoon during his interrogation.³⁰ Furthermore, Rembrandt has restored to him his right hand, in real life amputated as punishment for a previous theft.³¹ Thus, the artist “manages to rehumanize, rather than dehumanize, that body.”³² Some commentators have gone even further, and likened Rembrandt’s depiction of Adriaenzoon to artists’ depictions of the dead Christ: “the corpse is presented to the viewer as the body of Christ is presented in religious works; it lies in the foreground, on an altar-like table or slab, with space left for the viewer to approach in imagination.”³³

As for Dr. Tulp, his role in revealing the greatness of God was memorialized by Caspar Barlaeus, Amsterdam Professor of Philosophy and Rhetoric, in a poem written in 1645-6:

Here, while with artful hand he slits the pallid limbs,
Speaks to us the eloquence of learned Tulp:
Listener, learn yourself! and while you proceed through the parts,
Believe that, even in the smallest, God lies hid.³⁴

End notes

1. Collins Dictionaries. Definition of “hierophant.” https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/hierophant. 2026. Accessed October 30, 2026.
2. Goldwyn RM. Nicolaas Tulp (1593-1674). Med Hist. 1961;5(3):270-6. doi: 10.1017/s0025727300026405.
3. Kemp M, Wallace M. Spectactular Bodies. London: Hayward Gallery; 2000. 68.
4. Tetley G. De Anatomische Les (The Anatomy Lesson). In: Bleeker M, ed. Anatomy Live: Performance and the Operating Theatre. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press; 2008:111‑2.
5. Mauritshuis. Time Travel to Rembrandt’s Anatomy Lesson with the Mauritshuis and Nationale‑Nederlanden. https://www.mauritshuis.nl/en/press-releases/time-travel-to-rembrandt-s-anatomy-lesson-with-the-mauritshuis-and-nationale-nederlanden/. Published March 12, 2019. Accessed July 29, 2026.
6. Bugaevsky KA. Who is who in Rembrandt’s painting “The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Tulp” and painting “The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Deyman” in reflection of philately. JSM Anat Physiol. 2023;6(1):1023.
7. Hecksher WS. Rembrandt’s Anatomy of Dr, Nicolaas Tulp: an Iconological Study. Washington DC: New York University Press; 1958. 40.
8. Ijpma F, van Gulik T. Amsterdam’s Anatomy Lessons Dissected. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press; 2024.
9. Schupbach W. The paradox of Rembrandt’s “Anatomy of Dr. Tulp”. Med Hist. Suppl. 1982;(2):1-110. PMID: 6765286. Chapter 2.
10. Hecksher, op.cit., 40.
11. With the possible exception of Rembrandt’s 1656 “Anatomy of Dr. Jan Deijman.” Ijpma F, van Gulik T, op.cit., chapter 5.
12. Ijpma F, van Gulik T, op.cit., 91.
13. Hecksher, op.cit., 18.
14. Hecksher, op.cit., 5.
15. Hecksher, op.cit., 28.
16. Afek A, Friedman T, Kugel C, Barshack I, Lurie DJ. Dr. Tulp’s Anatomy Lesson by Rembrandt: the third day hypothesis. Isr Med Assoc J. 2009 Jul;11(7):389-92. PMID: 19911487.
17. Middelkoop N, Noble P, Waddum J, Broos B. Rembrandt under the Scalpel. Amsterdam: Six Art Promotion; 1998. Chapter 1.
18. Schama S. Rembrandt’s Eyes. London: Allen Lane the Penguin Press; 1999. 346.
19. Cunningham A. The end of the sacred ritual of anatomy. Can Bull Med Hist. 2001;18(2):187‑204. doi: 10.3138/cbmh.18.2.187. 194-6.
20. Schupbach, op.cit., 33.
21. Knoeff R. Dutch anatomy and clinical medicine in 17th-century Europe. European History Online. Mainz: Leibniz Institute of European History. Published June 20, 2012. http://www.ieg-ego.eu/knoeffr-2012-en URN: urn:nbn:de:0159-2012060623. Section 5. Accessed July 28, 2026.
22. Sugg RJ. The Impact of Vesalian Anatomy on Religious and Literary Culture from Philip Melanchthon to John Donne. PhD dissertation. University of Southampton; 2001. https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/464414/1/790620.pdf. 137. Accessed July 28, 2026.
23. This deeper analysis is due to William Schupbach, op cit.
24. Denkler K, Norman MA. Nerve and arterial supply to the hand in Vesalius’s De Humani Corporis Fabrica. Hand (NY). 2012 Jun;7(2):224-8. doi: 10.1007/s11552-012-9394-4. 227.
25. Schupbach, op.cit., 17.
26. Schupbach, op.cit., 57-8.
27. Acting together with the deeper flexor digitorum profundus muscle.
28. Schupbach, op.cit., 18.
29. Schupbach, op.cit., 19.
30. Ijpma F, van Gulik T, op.cit., 99.
31. Rulkens C. Rembrandt and the Mauritshuis. Zwolle: Waanders Publishers; 2019. 26.
32. Schama, op.cit., 351.
33. Mitchell D. Rembrandt’s “The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Tulp”: a sinner among the righteous. Artibus et Historiae 1994; 15(30):145-56. 151.
34. Translated by William Schupbach from Caspar Barlaeus, Poemata. Editio IV, Amsterdam 1645‑6, pars ii, p.537. Schupbach, op.cit., 49.