Art UK has updated its cookies policy. By using this website you are agreeing to the use of cookies. To find out more read our updated Use of Cookies policy and our updated Privacy policy.

Interior with a Physician Examining a Urine Flask

Image credit: Wellcome Collection

How you can use this image

Public Domain

This image has been assigned a Public Domain Mark and is free to use with unrestricted use.

Please acknowledge the Collection who own the work with a photo credit — this helps spread the word about their resources.

To learn more about images and rights, please see our image use page.

Download

Notes

Add or edit a note on this artwork that only you can see. You can find notes again by going to the ‘Notes’ section of your account.

In the centre of the picture a physician or natural philosopher holds up a flask of urine which the woman standing nearby has brought to him in the wicker basket which she holds on her arm. In traditional western medicine, examination of urine was the commonest method of diagnosis. The painters Gerard Thomas (1663–1720) and Balthasar van den Bossche (1681–1715) continued at Antwerp the tradition popularised by David Teniers the younger (1610–1690), of showing chemists, apothecaries and physicians in the setting of a room designed as the museum or laboratory of a scholar. Their paintings show them as somewhat antiquated figures consulting huge folio-size Latin books of the ancient works of Galen or (less frequently) Hippocrates. Although such books were printed in the sixteenth century, none appear to have been printed in the southern Netherlands in the seventeenth century, though some were printed at Lyons.

Wellcome Collection

London

Title

Interior with a Physician Examining a Urine Flask

Date

c.1700 (?)

Medium

oil on canvas

Measurements

H 86 x W 120.5 cm

Accession number

47325i

Acquisition method

purchased by Henry S. Wellcome, c.1900–1936

Work type

Painting

Tags

See a tag that’s incorrect or offensive? Challenge it and notify Art UK.

Help improve Art UK. Tag artworks and verify existing tags by joining the Tagger community.

Wellcome Collection

183 Euston Road, London, Greater London NW1 2BE England

This venue is open to the public. Not all artworks are on display. If you want to see a particular artwork, please contact the venue.
View venue