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
Observationes Medicae (Tulp) popular, that a hundred years later a translated version was published. Professor Tulp never wanted to publish in Dutch for fear of hypochondriac behavior. He was very against quacks and self-medication and it was for this reason that he worked on the Amsterdam Pharmacopoeia. This second version therefore, would have been against his wishes. However, the book was prefaced by a long "lykoratie", or ode to his memory, in which Ludovicus Wolzogen explains what a wonderful man Tulp was, and everything that he did for the city of Amsterdam and medicine in general. He claims to have made an accurate