Portrait of Professor Benjamin H. Rand

The Portrait of Professor Benjamin H. Rand is an 1874 painting by Thomas Eakins. It is an oil on canvas that depicts Benjamin H. Rand, a doctor at Jefferson Medical College who taught Eakins anatomy. History and description In this painting, Rand is reading a book while petting a cat. The portrait was the first Eakins made of someone outside his family. It is a prelude to what he considered his most important painting, The Gross Clinic (1875). Rand donated it to Jefferson Medical College when he retired. It was subsequently purchased by Alice L. Walton for an estimated US$20 million in April 2007, to be housed at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art.