Chirurgijnsgilde te Amsterdam, gildepenning van Mr. Hendrick Smeeckes, chirurgijn 1688

This is a guild badge for Mr. Hendrick Smeeckes, a surgeon in Amsterdam, made anonymously, and with no date assigned. Guilds in Amsterdam, as elsewhere, were powerful institutions protecting the interests of their members. Looking at the image on the badge, we see a surgeon hard at work. What does it mean to be kneeling, in service to the body of another? To be a surgeon in Amsterdam, during an era of intense global trade, was to participate in a world increasingly shaped by a burgeoning merchant class. These guilds were typically all male which would have excluded women from surgical practice, reinforcing gender roles within the medical profession and society at large. The inscription on the badge serves not only as identification, but also as a declaration of professional identity. The badge is a small but significant artifact that reminds us of the complex intersections of identity, labor, and social structure.