Dr Nicolaes Tulp, Amsterdam's city anatomist, lifts the muscles of a dead man's forearm while seven surgeons of the guild lean in. The corpse is Aris Kindt, hanged for armed robbery earlier that day. The 26-year-old Rembrandt, newly arrived in Amsterdam, turned a group portrait into a drama, though a real dissection would have begun with the chest, not the arm.
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Top left, the signature reads "Rembrant. f. 1632", perhaps his first use of his first name. The paper one surgeon holds carries a list of the sitters' names.
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