Dr. Agnew (Dr. D. Hayes Agnew) (1818–1892)

Thomas Eakins's study portrait of Dr. D. Hayes Agnew (1818-1892) is a preliminary or related work to his monumental 'Agnew Clinic' (1889), commissioned by students of the University of Pennsylvania to honor the distinguished surgeon. The Agnew Clinic is one of the greatest paintings in American art — a large-scale depiction of Agnew performing surgery before medical students — and preparatory portraits like this one document Eakins's rigorous process of studying his subject. Agnew was one of the leading American surgeons of the nineteenth century, and his portrait by Eakins — himself deeply engaged with medical and scientific subjects — was an act of professional and intellectual kinship.

Eakins's portrait technique was fundamentally Realist: he sought the truth of physiognomy and presence without idealization. Agnew's commanding face — wide-browed, direct, accustomed to authority in the operating theater — is rendered with the unflinching attention Eakins gave to all his serious subjects. The handling is direct and assured.