Framed The Gross Clinic by Thomas Eakins

The Gross Clinic by Thomas Eakins, painted in 1875, is a powerful and dramatic portrayal of Dr. Samuel D. Gross performing surgery before a group of medical students in a Philadelphia amphitheater. Gross, illuminated at the center, holds a scalpel while lecturing, surrounded by assistants, students, and a distressed woman—likely the patient’s mother. Eakins himself appears in the background, sketching the scene. Boldly realistic and anatomically precise, the painting was considered shocking for its graphic depiction of surgery, but it is now celebrated as a landmark of American realism and a tribute to scientific and medical progress.