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American Art

Portrait of Dr. Samuel D. Gross (The Gross Clinic)

Made in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States, North and Central America

1875

Thomas Eakins, American, 1844 - 1916

Oil on canvas
8 feet x 6 feet 6 inches (243.8 x 198.1 cm)

Currently not on view

2007-1-1

Gift of the Alumni Association to Jefferson Medical College in 1878 and purchased by the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 2007 with the generous support of more than 3,600 donors, 2007

Label

Dr. Samuel D. Gross appears in the surgical amphitheater at Jefferson Medical College, lit by the skylight overhead. Five doctors (one of whom is obscured by Dr. Gross) attend to the young patient, whose cut left thigh, bony buttocks, and sock-clad feet are all that is visible to the viewer. Chief of Clinic Dr. James M. Barton bends over the patient, probing the incision, while junior assistant Dr. Charles S. Briggs grips the patient's legs and Dr. Daniel M. Appel keeps the incision open with a retractor. The anesthetist (Dr. W. Joseph Hearn) holds a folded napkin soaked with chloroform over the patient's face, while the clinic clerk (Dr. Franklin West) records the proceedings. A woman at the left, traditionally identified as the patient's mother, cringes and shields her eyes, unable to look. Confident of the outcome of the operation, Dr. Gross calmly and majestically turns to address his students, including the intent figure of Thomas Eakins, who is seated at the right edge of the canvas.

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Additional information:

  • PublicationPhiladelphia Museum of Art: Handbook of the Collections

    Eakins' masterpiece, acclaimed as the greatest American painting of the nineteenth century, depicts the famed surgeon Samuel D. Gross as he paused to instruct students at Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia. Born in the city and a student at Jefferson, Eakins wished to celebrate his professor and the city's illustrious medical community. He also hoped, at the age of thirty-one, to establish his own reputation as a realist painter. Drawing on his training at the Pennsylvania Academy and in Europe, Eakins composed a majestic painting that wedded modern naturalism to the technique and impact of the old masters. Painted expressly for the Centennial exhibition in Philadelphia in 1876, the picture and its bloody detail shocked the art jury; ultimately, it was displayed among the medical exhibits at the fair. Kathleen A. Foster , from Philadelphia Museum of Art: Handbook of the Collections, 2009.