Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Jan Steen

  • Art and alcohol

    Giovanni CeccarelliRoma, Italy In the late 1940s Elaine de Kooning, wife of one of the most eminent exponents of American abstract expressionism (Willem de Kooning), commented that the whole art world of her time had become alcoholic. Yet even earlier, perhaps always, drinking and drunkenness had attracted the interest of many artists. In a drinking…

  • A physician and a pregnant patient

    A very pregnant young woman, not feeling her best, is sitting with a doctor in consultation. Another woman in the background is holding a container full of urine that the doctor will examine. But presumably the doctor has already determined what ails the patient, for he is writing a prescription. The ubiquitous chamber pot is…

  • A physician examining a patient’s urine

    This painting from the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford shows a physician uroscopist examining a specimen of urine in order to determine what was ailing his patient. It is a serious painting, unlike that of Dutch artists such as Jan Steen who regarded uroscopists as quacks and made fun of their pretentious mien and attire. The…

  • Jan Steen: quack doctors visit lovesick maidens

    Like his contemporary Molière, the Dutchman Jan Steen makes fun of quack doctors, often shown in ridiculous costumes visiting young love-sick or pregnant women. In the Lovesick Maiden (Fig.1, Metropolitan Museum) the diagnosis is suggested by the painting of a Cupid above the door, the bed on the right, and the bed-warmer on the lower…

  • Gerrit Dou and his Netherlandish quacks

      Gerrit Dou (1613-1675), one of Rembrandt’s first students, was born thirteen years before his contemporary Jan Steen and died four years before him. Both painted similar works of contrasting light and dark, both lived most of their lives in Leiden, and both included in their work several scenes illustrating healthcare in the Netherlands in…

  • Jan Steen: Quack doctors visit lovesick maidens

    Like his contemporary Molière, the Dutchman Jan Steen makes fun of quack doctors, often shown in ridiculous costumes visiting young love-sick or pregnant women. In the Lovesick Maiden (Fig.1, Metropolitan Museum) the diagnosis is suggested by the painting of a Cupid above the door, the bed on the right, and the bed-warmer on the lower…

  • The doctor in literature: the abortion and the abortionist

    Solomon Posen Sydney, Australia “I will not give to a woman a pessary to cause abortion. But I will keep pure and holy both my life and my art.”1 “It’s an awfully simple operation.”2   The Doctor and His Patient By Jan Steen, Dutch (1626-1679) Oil on canvas, 76 x 64 cm Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam The…

  • The pulsilogium and the diagnosis of love sickness

    Donatella LippiGiuseppe MasciaLuigi PadelettiFlorence, Italy Doctors since time immemorial have felt the pulse of their patients, noting its regularity, frequency, strength, and breadth, at times using colorful expressions to variously describe it as “formicant” or “vermicular” (ant-like or worm-like),1 and diagnosing “love sickness” in maidens by the presence of the so-called pulsus amatorius. (Fig 1.)…

  • Art and the myth of the “wandering womb”

    Laurinda DixonNew York, United States Seventeenth-century Dutch paintings bearing modern titles such as “The Doctor’s Visit” or “The Lovesick Maiden” are common.1 They were once produced in great numbers and, with some variations, illustrate the same thing. The example by Jan Steen in the Taft Museum in Cincinnati (Fig. 1) is typical. Here a pretty young…

  • Art and Medicine

    JMS PearceEast Yorks, England Art has been said to deepen compassion for suffering.1 Paintings have been interpreted as “metaphors for human feelings . . . they are nonliteral symbols of the inner life.”2 Paintings trigger emotions and insights, “generating associations and tapping new, different, or deeper levels of meaning.”3 It is inherent in all the arts…