Portrait of Herman Boerhaave (1688-1738)

Arent de Gelder dated this canvas 1722, the year gout kept Herman Boerhaave flat on his back for five months. Boerhaave taught medicine, botany and chemistry at Leiden and was the most celebrated medical teacher of his day, with students coming from all over Europe to hear him. When he returned to the lecture hall in January 1723, the university building and the houses along the Leiden canals were lit up in his honour.

De Gelder shows him informally, in a loose red cloak, one hand turned outward as if he were in the middle of a sentence. The oval is painted with quick, broad strokes. A famous public figure was an unusual sitter for this Dordrecht painter, who mostly painted biblical scenes and studies of people from his own town.

An old inscription on the back gives the painter's name, the year 1722, and Boerhaave's birth on the last day of 1668. The portrait was given to the Mauritshuis in 1918.