Nicolaes Tulp depicted in the painting can be dated to 16 January 1632; the Amsterdam Guild of Surgeons, of which Tulp was official City Anatomist, permitted only one public dissection a year and the body would have to be that of an executed criminal. The criminal is identified as the robber Aris Kindt. Rembrandt would later make a painting of Tulp's successor in 1656 "The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Jan Deijman". Since the painting of Tulp's predecessor in 1619, "The Osteology Lesson of Dr Sebastiaen Egbertsz" was a group portrait around a skeleton, it is clear that the subject of a dead
Dirck Tulp had been used for dying silk since 1603. The silk was imported from Persia, and shipped, either through Archangelsk or the Strait of Gibraltar. A pair of fashionable Flemish ladies had headed it, its activities occurring in its light and airy attics. Over the years, the operation was largely moved to the Jordaan. When Tulp and his wife began building-work in 1652, they had the building embellished with stucco and the floor laid with marble. The Kloveniersburgwal was an attractive site for the rich, being close to the nerve center of the VOC, in which Tulp was appointed as delegate.