The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp

Rembrandt was 26 when the Amsterdam Guild of Surgeons commissioned this group portrait of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp dissecting the corpse of a criminal, Aris Kindt, executed that day. Tulp points at the flexor muscles of the forearm — but they are painted attached to the wrong bones. The error is repeated in the open Vesalius text in the upper-right. The most famous anatomy painting in Western art teaches anatomy that doesn't exist. Now at Mauritshuis, The Hague @mauritshuis