The Gross Clinic

The Gross Clinic is one of the best known works by Thomas Eakins (1844-1916).  He was an American painter who was a standard bearer for the Realism movement.  In the painting is depicted Dr. Samuel D. Gross, a teacher and surgeon at the Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia, engaged in a teaching demonstration of a surgical procedure for the medical students seated behind him.  Five other doctors operate on a patient's infected thigh.  The 1875 painting was considered extreme and controversial.