The Agnew Clinic
| The Agnew Clinic | |
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| Artist | Thomas Eakins |
| Year | 1889 |
| Medium | Oil on canvas |
| Dimensions | 214 cm × 300 cm ( 84 3⁄8 in × 118 1⁄8 in) |
| Location | John Morgan Building at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania |
The Agnew Clinic, or, The Clinic of Dr. Agnew, is an 1889 oil painting by American artist Thomas Eakins, Goodrich #235. It was commissioned to honor anatomist and surgeon David Hayes Agnew, on his retirement from teaching at the University of Pennsylvania.
The Agnew Clinic depicts Dr. Agnew performing a partial mastectomy in a medical amphitheater. He stands in the left foreground, holding a scalpel. Also present are Dr. J. William White, applying a bandage to the patient; Dr. Joseph Leidy (nephew of paleontologist Joseph Leidy), taking the patient's pulse; and Dr. Ellwood R. Kirby, administering anesthetic. In the background, Dr. Agnew's nurse, Mary Clymer, and University of Pennsylvania medical school students observe. Eakins placed himself in the painting – he is the rightmost of the pair behind the nurse – although the actual painting of him is attributed to his wife, Susan Macdowell Eakins. The painting, also, records the significant transition, in just 14 years, from the earlier status quo — the participants' black frock coats represented in The Gross Clinic (1875) — to the "white coats" of 1889.
The painting is Eakins's largest work. It was commissioned for $750 (equivalent to $19,992 today) in 1889 by three undergraduate classes at the University of Pennsylvania, to honor Dr. Agnew on the occasion of his retirement. The painting was completed quickly, in three months, rather than the year that Eakins took for The Gross Clinic. Eakins carved a Latin inscription into the painting's frame. Translated, it says: "D. Hayes Agnew M.D. Most experienced surgeon, clearest writer and teacher, most venerated and beloved man."
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