page_title: Mary Rose
section_title: Barber-surgeon's cabin
hierarchical_section_title: Mary Rose / Archaeology / Finds / Barber-surgeon's cabin
caption_attribution_description: English: This large-scale work was commissioned to commemorate the grant of a royal charter to the Company of Barbers and the Guild of Surgeons on their merger in 1540. Presumably at the request of his clients, Holbein based the design on that of the miniatures painted on Tudor charters of privileges. Henry did not sit for this last of Holbein's portraits of him. Working from an existing sketch, Holbein painted him not so much as a living person but as an icon.&#91;1&#93; The members of the company, however, were painted as individuals. On the King’s right side are his two physicians, Dr. John Chambers and Sir William Butts and his apothecary Thomas Alsop. The figures of Sir William Butts and the doctor John Chambers are closely related to portraits of them by Holbein (left). On the King’s left side are his Serjeant-Surgeon, Thomas Vicary (Master 1530, 1541, 1546, 1548, 1557), his surgeons, Sir John Ayliffe (Master 1538), James Monforde (Warden 1540, 1543) and Richard Ferris (Master 1551, 1562) and his barbers, Nicholas Simpson (Master 1537), Edmund Harman (Master 1540), and John Penn (Master 1539). Others portrayed and named are Nicholas Alcock, Christopher Salmon (Master 1552) and William Tilley (Warden 1540, 1546). According to the diarist Samuel Pepys, the painting was badly damaged in the Great Fire of London of 1666.&#91;2&#93; It is not clear how much of the original panel was completed by Holbein himself, who died in the year the painting was begun, and how much by others; neither is it known whether those who first added to the work did so under Holbein's supervision. Scholars such as Roy Strong and John Rowlands suspect that the main additions were made after Holbein's death (probably in the last years of Henry VIII's reign), since they are not improvements.&#91;3&#93; Holbein's cartoon for the composition, later much painted over by other hands, reveals his original conception, but the actual painting departs markedly from it in places, for example in the second row of figures on the right and in the background. The inscription is not Holbein's, though it can be dated to before Henry's death in 1547. The men standing in the second row on the right were added in the mid-16th century by an anonymous painter. The painter and restorer Richard Greenbury reworked the painting in the 17th century, so heavily that he entirely covered the original layers of varnish with impasto.&#91;4&#93; In the view of Holbein's biographer Derek Wilson, the result is a "disaster": "A lifeless, oversized king dangles the charter from a limp hand while a row (the second rank was added later) of comparatively diminutive recipients kneel in relevant homage. The treatment is archaic and atypical".&#91;2&#93; References ↑ Stephanie Buck, Hans Holbein, Cologne: Könemann, 1999, ISBN 3829025831, 128. ↑ a b Derek Wilson, Hans Holbein: Portrait of an Unknown Man, London: Pimlico, 2006, ISBN 1844139182, 273. ↑ Rowlands, John, Holbein: The Paintings of Hans Holbein the Younger, Boston: David R. Godine, 1985, ISBN 0879235780, 148–49. ↑ Buck, 127–29.
context_page_description: The Mary Rose is a carrack-type warship of the English Tudor navy of King Henry VIII. She served for 33 years in several wars against France, Scotland, and Brittany. After being substantially rebuilt in 1536, she saw her last action on 19 July 1545. She led the attack on the galleys of a French invasion fleet, but sank in the Solent, the straits north of the Isle of Wight.
  The wreck of the Mary Rose was discovered in 1971 and was raised on 11 October 1982 by the Mary Rose Trust in one of the most complex and expensive maritime salvage projects in history. The surviving section of the ship and thousands of recovered artefacts are of great value as a Tudor-era time capsule. The excavation and raising of the Mary Rose was a milestone in the field of maritime archaeology, comparable in complexity and cost to the raising of the 17th-century Swedish warship Vasa in 1961.
  The finds include weapons, sailing equipment, naval supplies, and a wide array of objects used by the crew. Many of the artefacts are unique to the Mary Rose and have provided insights into topics ranging from naval warfare to the history of musical instruments.
context_section_description: The cabin located on the main deck underneath the sterncastle is thought to have belonged to the barber-surgeon. He was a trained professional who saw to the health and welfare of the crew and acted as the medical expert on board. The most important of these finds were found in an intact wooden chest which contained over 60 objects relating to the barber-surgeon's medical practice: the wooden handles of a complete set of surgical tools and several shaving razors (although none of the steel blades had survived), a copper syringe for wound irrigation and treatment of gonorrhoea, and even a skilfully crafted feeding bottle for feeding incapacitated patients. More objects were found around the cabin, such as earscoops, shaving bowls and combs. With this wide selection of tools and medicaments the barber-surgeon, along with one or more assistants, could set bone fractures, perform amputations and deal with other acute injuries, treat a number of diseases and provide crew members with a minimal standard of personal hygiene.
caption: Along with the medical equipment were also personal items belonging to the barber-surgeon, including an expensive silk velvet coif identical to those worn by the members of the Worshipful Company of Barbers in this painting by Hans Holbein the Younger from 1540.[130]
exif: {}