Nicolaes Tulp attended by prominent learned men, who exchanged ideas about anatomy and the chemical processes of the human body. As befits a new praelector, the Guild commissioned a new group portrait of the prominent councilmen and guildmasters. Rembrandt, himself a young man of 26 and new to the city, won this commission and made a famous painting of him: "The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Nicolaes Tulp". This painting, which now hangs in the Mauritshuis museum of the Hague, depicts Tulp dissecting such a criminal's forearm. There has been much speculation as to why the dissection began on the forearm. Rembrandt's event
The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp scientist such as Dr. Tulp would not be involved in menial and bloody work like dissection, and such tasks would be left to others. It is for this reason that the picture shows no cutting instruments. Instead we see in the lower right corner an enormous open textbook on anatomy, possibly the 1543 "De humani corporis fabrica" ("Fabric of the Human Body") by Andreas Vesalius. The corpse is that of the criminal Aris Kindt (alias of Adriaan Adriaanszoon), who was convicted for armed robbery and sentenced to death by hanging. He was executed earlier on the same day of the