The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp entrance fee. The spectators are appropriately dressed for this social occasion. It is thought that the uppermost (not holding the paper) and farthest left figures were added to the picture later. Every five to ten years, the Surgeon's Guild would commission a portrait by a leading portraitist of the period; Rembrandt was commissioned for this task when he was 26 years old, and newly arrived in Amsterdam. It was his first major commission in Amsterdam. Each of the men included in the portrait would have paid a certain amount of money to be included in the work, and the more
Isabella Henriette van Eeghen to follow in the footsteps of her grandfather, also called Christiaan Pieter van Eeghen, who in his free time set up the Vondelpark and was responsible for various improvements to the Van der Hoop museum in 1854, the forerunner of the Rijksmuseum. It was the elder Van Eeghen who paid to have the paintings in the Amsterdam surgeons' guild restored in 1865, among them of course the "Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp". Isa attended the local girls' school MMS and then continued at the Gymnasium, eventually earning her degree in history from the University of Amsterdam. She earned her