Portrait Of A Doctor With A Foetuses - French School, 18th Century.

Portrait of an anatomist, surgeon, obstetrician or embryologist. The character, aged 30 to 40, holds a jar containing a human fetus, labelled with a Latin formula "Disce me noscere": Learn to know me. He is sitting at a work table, in front of a library of medical and surgical books (Hippocrates, Galen, Boerhaave, Harvey...). On the table lies volume III of Heister's Anatomy, published in 1753.
Rare iconography.
Unidentified character. Perhaps Jean-Joseph Sue, the father (known as Sue le Jeune, or Sue de la Charité, 1710-1792: grandfather of Eugène Sue). This surgeon and professor of anatomy and dissection had one of the most important anatomy offices of his time* and he provided descriptions of fetuses preserved in fluid.
Delicate work on the complexion, in the drawing of the hands and in the meticulous rendering of details – especially in the curls of the wig and the lace of the garment.
Relining. Trace of restoration.
*Philippe Comar (dir.), Figures du corps, p. 463-467; p. 471.