At 96 by 78 inches, The Gross Clinic is one of the artist's largest works, and considered by some to be Eakins' greatest. Eakins was elated by the project and stated that "it is very far better than anything I have ever done". But if Eakins hoped to impress his home town with the picture, he was to be disappointed; public reaction to the painting of a realistic surgical incision and the resultant blood was ambivalent at best, and it was finally purchased by the college for the unimpressive sum of $200.
