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In 1889, Thomas Eakins was commissioned to paint a portrait of Dr. David Hayes Agnew to commemorate his exemplary career as a physician and teacher at The University of Pennsylvania. What was originally proposed as a three-quarters portrait of the retiring professor quickly became an enormous painting depicting an operating theater with Dr. Agnew assuming his role as both surgeon and educator. When comparing this piece with an earlier Eakins’ painting, The Gross Clinic, one can trace the rapid evolution of surgical techniques that accompanied medicine’s advancement in the late 19th century. Eakins obviously embraced this progress, but was the public ready to do so too? [Copyright &y& Elsevier]