Dr. Agnew (Dr. D. Hayes Agnew) (1818–1892) Yale University Art Gallery

ca. 1889

On view, 2nd floor, American Art before 1900

The University of Pennsylvania’s medical class of 1889 commissioned from Thomas Eakins a portrait to mark the retirement of their beloved professor Dr. David Hayes Agnew. The surgeon was not only esteemed for his teaching but also renowned for his practice of antisepsis, a major advance in medical hygiene. Eakins shows the white-gowned Agnew in the operating theater, gesturing with one hand and holding a scalpel in the other, as if lecturing to his students. This portrait is a study for the larger canvas The Agnew Clinic (1889, University of Pennsylvania Art Collection, Philadelphia).

Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 49 × 31 1/2 in. (124.5 × 80 cm)
Credit Line: Bequest of Stephen Carlton Clark, B.A. 1903
Accession Number: 1961.18.16
Geography: Made in United States
Culture: American
Period: 19th century
Classification: Paintings
Disclaimer: Note: This electronic record was created from historic documentation that does not necessarily reflect the Yale University Art Gallery’s complete or current knowledge about the object. Review and updating of records is ongoing.

Provenance

The artist (1844–1916), Philadelphia; sold to Albert C. Barnes (1872–1951), Merion, Penn.,1914; Barnes Foundation, Merion, Penn., 1914–44; sold to Stephen Carlton Clark (1882–1960), probably 1944; bequeathed to the Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Conn., 1961

Bibliography

Steven Conn et al., An Eakins Masterpiece Restore: Seeing The Gross Clinic Anew, eds. Kathleen A. Foster and Mark Tucker (Philadephia: Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2012), 86, fig. 7.2

Helen A. Cooper et al., Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness: American Art from the Yale University Art Gallery, exh. cat. (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Art Gallery, 2008), 239, no. 135, ill.

Michael Conforti et al., The Clark Brothers Collect: Impressionist and Early Modern Paintings, exh. cat. (Williamstown, Mass.: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 2006), 176–77, 316, 325, fig. 144

Stephen Carlton Clark, A Collector's Taste: A Benefit Exhibition of Paintings; Selections from the Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Stephen C. Clark for the Benefit of the Fresh Air Association of St. John, exh. cat. (New York: M. Knoedler & Co., 1954), 22–23, no. 23

Object copyright

No Copyright - United States

Additional information

Object/Work type

figures (representations), genre (visual works), human figures (visual works), portraits

Subject

physicians science

Signed

Signed lower right "STUDY FOR THE/ AGNEW POR-/TRAIT EAKINS."

Technical metadata and APIs

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