The Gentleman Artist-Surgeon in Late Victorian Group Portraiture

Abstract

In this article I consider the ways in which group portraits of surgeons, a genre associated with inscriptions of corporate membership and institutional authority, reflected the complex and at times contradictory status of surgeons during the late Victorian period. Group portraits from this period offer a diverse range of representations of surgeons – from middle-class professional to hygiene reformer, scientist to cultured gentleman – all of which worked against the popular conception of the surgeon as manual labourer and bloody carpenter. In particular, the emergence during the period of the gentleman artist-surgeon, exemplified by the celebrity surgeon and amateur artist Henry Thompson (1820–1904), signalled a new incarnation of the surgeon and offered an alternative to both the stereotypes of the surgeon as manual labourer and the surgeon or middle-class professional. But there were complexities and contradictions that beset the identity of the gentleman artist-surgeon, and these will be considered with reference to Thompson’s own novel, Charley Kingston’s Aunt (1885).

5 Sober suits, bowler hats and white lab coats

“…52 To shake off the association of their work with 'crude' manual labour, surgeons chose to present themselves as members of the upper class, depicted hosting dinner parties, or conforming to the image of the man of letters, the philosopher, who was considered a gentleman, surrounded by books and sitting at his desk. 53 Like the forensic experts prior to 1960, they were seldom depicted in their working space or with the instruments of their trade. 54 In their performance, physicians and surgeons needed to find a balance between 'dressing up' and not appearing flamboyant.…”

“…53 Like the forensic experts prior to 1960, they were seldom depicted in their working space or with the instruments of their trade. 54 In their performance, physicians and surgeons needed to find a balance between 'dressing up' and not appearing flamboyant. It was important for them not to appear pompous because of the long history of competition between qualified and unqualified doctors in Britain.…”

Inventing the medical portrait: photography at the ‘Benevolent Asylum’ of Holloway, c. 1885–1889

“…Those aspirations were pictured not by the mug shots or identity cards commonly identified as institutional images, but by respectful, outdoor variations of the studio portrait. Signs of the strain of producing such portraits are manifest in the images themselves; but so is a tentative pride in the act of self-representation 9 10…”

“…The successful outcome must strike a balance between the recognition of each individual, and a coherent form that gives shape to their collective identity 9 10. Too distinctive an individual's pose, expression, or dress and the unity of the group is undermined.…”