George Nitzsche's Description of the
Thomas Eakins painting "The Agnew Clinic"

Demonstrator of Anatomy and Assistant Lecturer on Clinical Surgery, 1863-1870; Professor of Surgery, 1870-1899; Professor Emeritus, 1889; at the close of a clinic in the amphitheatre of Medical Hall. Presented at the 115th annual Commencement of the Department of Medicine of the University of Pennsylvania, May 1, 1899, by the (then) three undergraduate classes of the Medical Department.

[The painting exhibits in the foreground a life-size portrait of Dr. Agnew leaning against the rail of the clinic seats, lecturing to a class of Medical students upon an operation which he has just performed. The canvas is 11 x 7 feet, and upon the frame appears the following inscription: "D. Hayes Agnew, M.D. Chirurgus expertissimus; scriptor et doctor clarissimus; vir veneratus et carissimus."* All of the subordinate fugures in the group are about life size, and are actual likenesses, the names of those being depicted being as follows:

Dr. J. William White, Dr. Joseph Leidy, Jr., Dr. Elwood C. Kirby, Dr. Fred H. Millikin, Thomas Eakins (the artist, as painted by his wife), Miss Clymer (a nurse), J. Alison Scott, Charles N. Davis, John T. Carpenter, Jr., John Bacon, Benjamin Brooke, J. H owe Adams, William C. Posey, Henry Toulmin, John Rothermel, John S. Kulp, Alfred Stengel, Clarence A. Butler, Joseph S. Tunis, Frank R. Keefer, Nathan M. Baker, George Woodward, Arthur H. Cleveland, Herbert B. Carpenter, George D. Cross, William H. Furnes s, Jr., Walter R. Lincoln, Howard S. Anders, Oscar M. Richards, Minford Levis. One individual only (in the extreme upper left-hand corner) is unidentified.]

Last update: 28-Feb-97
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