Rembrandt painted The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Tulp on canvas. Completed in 1632, the work is an oil painting showing Amsterdam surgeon Nicolaes Tulp demonstrating the muscles of a cadaver’s left arm to members of the Surgeons’ Guild.
Canvas was a practical and increasingly common support for large seventeenth-century paintings, especially works intended for public or institutional display. Rembrandt used the format to arrange the figures as a compact but lively group rather than as a rigid row of portraits.
The painting is sometimes confused with Rembrandt’s The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Deijman, completed in 1656. The earlier Tulp painting survives as a complete composition and is displayed in The Hague, while the later Deijman work was badly damaged by fire.