As promised in my last blog, here’s the other most commented on painting on the Fernwood Art Stroll. Crazily, I can’t find any photos showing the process of the painting (did I really not take any??) which is pretty frustrating considering it was so interesting for me to follow where the painting led. Anyway, here’s the finished piece:

The Doctor’s Visit by Jan Steen
You may be wondering about this blog’s title. So here’s the scoop. While pondering what I would write about (since I didn’t have those dang progression photos for ‘Moving’) I began thinking about my family doctor, Dr. Karen Berg, who passed away on May 20th. It was a total shock, her being about my age and it’s hard to believe she’s no longer here. Her memorial was today on Salt Spring Island and I was unable to attend. Thinking of her, I began wondering how doctors have been portrayed in art.
And so I went looking. Here’s a short survey of what I found.
I came across this well known painting of the surgeon Dr Samuel Gross by Thomas Eakins (1844-1916):

It’s tricky to make out what’s going so this snippet from the painting’s label will help:
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…. The anesthetist (Dr. W. Joseph Hearn) holds a folded napkin soaked with chloroform over the patient’s face…. A woman at the left, traditionally identified as the patient’s mother, cringes and shields her eyes, unable to look.
You can read more about this very large painting if you scroll down the page on wikipedia.
I then found this charming painting of a doctor with his young patient (parents in the background) by Sir Luke Fildes (1843-1927). It’s at the Tate Britain and you can read about it on the their website. There’s also a rather fascinating article about what the painting can tell as about the medical practice today as well as an observant description of the painting by author Jane Moore.

Still I went looking.
And then I came upon a painting about a doctor’s visit by Jan Steen….then another, and another, and another. I couldn’t get over how many he’d painted! I kept wondering if they were works by followers of Steen, but no, with further research, I located them all in museums as painted by Jan Steen (1626-1679). He was obviously onto something with the subject and I’m guessing they sold really well. And what’s amusing is that some (most!) of them are about love sickness! With the sexual overtone, it’s not surprising they were popular.
Here are a few of the ones I came across. There’s an awful lot of pulse taking!




From the Taft Museum’s website:
Steen was a specialist in genre, or scenes of everyday life. He stands apart from other painters by the satirical nature of his work. Here, a doctor in outdated costume and clumsy pose takes the pulse of a richly dressed young woman. Steen offers the diagnosis in the text on the floor: “No medicine is of use, for it is lovesickness.” Recent scholarship suggests that the young woman is suffering from a “wandering womb,” which could be cured only by sexual activity. With little subtlety, the artist poses the cure in the provocatively pointing bedwarmer at lower left and the bulbous lute hanging on the wall. The pungent odor of the ribbon burning in the brazier on the floor was intended to rouse the patient from her lethargic state.

And from the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s website:
Jan Steen is known for his entertaining and moralizing scenes of contemporary Dutch life. One of his favorite themes was the doctor’s visit, usually to a young woman suffering from lovesickness or pregnancy. The ribbon smoldering on the brazier near the patient’s foot was a quack technique for determining pregnancy. The doctor checks her pulse and appears startled by its quickening, a possible reaction to the man in the doorway, who is presumably the cause of her illness. The laughing figure holding a herring above the woman seems to confirm her predicament and folly.

And this is what the Metropolitan Museum of Art has to say about this piece:
Doctors were familiar targets of parody in Steen’s native Leiden, the home of a famous medical school. Borrowing from the comic stage, Steen identifies the old man as a quack by his peculiar clothing, while the nature of the young lady’s malady is suggested by the cupid over the door, and other intimations like the open bed.
And so there you have a taste of Jan Steen’s paintings of The Doctor’s Visit! I could certainly spend a lot of time examining the symbolism.
Before I leave you, here’s an engaging video about the conservation of yet another version by Jan Steen located in Mauritshuis, The Hague. You see some wonderfully close views of the work. I was unable to locate a colour image of the painting, but here it is in black and white. It’s very similar to the painting in the Hermitage.

I had a couple more paintings by other artists in the wings but I think we’ve had our fill! I’d love to know what you think of these paintings and if you know of others I should have included.
Thanks for spending some time with me. I sure do appreciate it.
Wishing you good health, peace, and a Happy Canada Day!!!!!
~ Gail
4 thoughts on “The Doctor’s Visit by Jan Steen…many times over!”
I thoroughly Enjoyed this blog it took me ages to figure out that I was looking at the mans bottom not his knee still think he had a hard time holding the pose and ether makes me sick .The painting of the doctor 1891 was special to me a large copy of it hung in my grandmothers home .Could go on at length but space limits Thanks for the memories
I know, it’s really difficult to make out the figure of the patient which was why I thought it would be helpful to include the label description. How lovely that the painting of the doctor and sick child resonated with you and was such a strong memory. Sandy, you are welcome to say much more!! I am curious 🙂
Your blog about the Jan Steen renderings of physicians was over the top! Some of those physicians looked like they were interested in participating in the cure of the wandering wombs! What a term! And some of the women in the paintings, who were not patients, looked like they might be gossiping about the sick women, especially in the painting done c.1660!
It’s great that you picked up many of the nuances in the paintings Debbie. And what about the cupids in the paintings above some of the doorways!?