Nicolaus Tulp (Tulpius)

This 1634 line engraving by Cornelis van Dalen, after a portrait by Nicolaes Eliasz. Pickenoy, depicts Dr. Nicolaus Tulp (1593-1674), a prominent Dutch physician, anatomist, and civic leader of Amsterdam during the Dutch Golden Age. Best known today as the central figure in Rembrandt's The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp (1632), he was a respected member of the Amsterdam Guild of Surgeons and later served as mayor of the city multiple times. Tulp published Observationes Medicae in 1641, a widely influential book of medical case studies that gained international recognition. In this portrait, he is shown with the dignified bearing befitting his status in both medicine and public life, captured at a time when science, art, and civic responsibility were closely intertwined in the flourishing culture of 17th-century Amsterdam.