On the Anatomization of an Unknown Man (1637) by Frans Mier by John Connolly

I
    The painting titled
The Anatomization of an Unknown Man
is one of the more obscure works by the minor Dutch painter Frans Mier. It is an unusual piece, although its subject matter may be said to be typical of our time: the opening up of a body by what is, one initially assumes, a surgeon or anatomist, the light from a suspended lamp falling over the naked body of the anonymous man, his scalp peeled back to reveal his skull, his innards exposed as the anatomist’s blade hangs suspended above him, ready to explore further the intricacies of his workings, the central physical component of the universe’s rich complexity.
    I was not long ago in England, and witnessed there the hanging of one Elizabeth Evans–Canberry Bess, they called her–a notorious murderer and cutpurse, who was taken with her partner, one Thomas Shearwood. Counterey Tom was hanged and then gibbeted at Gray’s Inn fields, but it was the fate of Elizabeth Evans to be dissected after her death at the Barber-Surgeons’ Hall, for the body of a woman is of more interest to the surgeons than the body of a man, and harder to come by. She wept and screamed as she was brought to the gallows, and cried out for a Christian burial, for the terror of the hall was greater to her than that of the noose itself. Eventually the hangman silenced her with a rag, for she was disturbing the crowd.
    Something of her fear had communicated itself to the onlookers, though, for there was a commotion at the gallows, as I recall. Although the surgeons wore the guise of commoners, yet the crowd knew them for what they were, and a shout arose that the woman had suffered enough under the law, and that she should have no further barbarities visited upon her, although I fear their concern was less for the dignity of her repose than the knowledge that the mob was to be deprived of the display of her carcass in chains at St. Pancras and the slow exposure of her bones at King’s Cross. Still, the surgeons had their way, for when the hangman was done with her, she was cut down and stripped of her apparel, then laid naked in a chest and thrown into a cart. From there, she was carried to the hall near unto Cripplegate. For a penny, I was permitted, with others, to watch as the surgeons went about their work, and a revelation it was to me.
    But I digress. I speak of it merely to stress that Mier’s painting cannot be understood in isolation. It is a record of our time and should be seen in the context of the work of Valverde and Estienne, of Spigelius and Berrettini and Berengarius, those other great illustrators of the inner mysteries of our corporeal form.
    Yet look closer and it becomes clear that the subject of Mier’s painting is not as it first appears. The unknown man’s face is contorted in its final agony, but there is no visible sign of strangulation, and his neck is unmarked. If he is a malefactor taken from the gallows, then by what means was his life ended? Although the light is dim, it is clear that his hands have been tied to the anatomist’s table by means of stout rope. Only the right hand is visible, admittedly, but one would hardly secure one and not the other. On his wrist are gashes where he has struggled against his bonds, and blood pours from the table to the floor in great quantities. The dead do not bleed in this way.
    And if this is truly a surgeon, then why does he not wear the attire of a learned man? Why does he labor alone in some dank place, and not in a hall or theater? Where are his peers? Why are there no other men of science, no assistants, no curious onlookers enjoying their penny’s worth? This, it would appear, is secret work.
    Look: there, in the corner, behind the anatomist, head tilted to stare down at the dissected man. Is that not the head and upper body of a woman? Her left hand is raised to her mouth, and her eyes are wide with grief and horror, but here, too, a rope is visible. She is also restrained,