Artworks
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Astley Paston Cooper (1768–1841) Thomas Lawrence (1769–1830)
Hunterian Museum -
Rhinoceros George Stubbs (1724–1806)
Hunterian Museum -
Ronald William Raven (1904–1991) William F. Whitsett (1922–2011)
Hunterian Museum -
Pennell Hawkins (1716–1792) Johann Zoffany (1733–1810)
Hunterian Museum -
Private Thomas Walker Thomas William Wood (active 1855–1872)
Hunterian Museum -
Portrait of a Gentleman unknown artist
Hunterian Museum -
Chimpanzee John Christian Zeitter (1798–1862)
Hunterian Museum - 235 more
More about
About the collection
The Royal College of Surgeons of England has collected paintings for over 200 years. Others were inherited from its predecessor, the Company of Surgeons. Today, almost 250 pictures, mostly in oils, are displayed in the Hunterian Museum and throughout the College building. Portraits of distinguished surgeons dominate the collections. Many of these were painted by the leading portrait artists of the day, including William Hogarth and Joshua Reynolds.
In 1799 the Company of Surgeons received pictures that had belonged to the surgeon and anatomist John Hunter (1728–1793). Paintings by George Stubbs and Jan van Rymsdyk record exotic animals studied by Hunter. Others depict interesting medical cases, anatomical subjects and visitors to London from all over the world. Artworks collected during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries illustrate significant events in the College’s history. 'Henry VIII with the Barber Surgeons', by the school of Hans Holbein the Younger, commemorates the unification of the Company of Barbers with the Guild of Surgeons in 1540. Others, such as Barbara Hepworth’s 'Concourse (2)', show surgeons at work.