Portrait of Dame Anne McLaren DBE, FRS, FRCOG

Commissioned by the Royal Society, 2010.
Half-length posthumous portrait of Anne McLaren. The core image is after an existing but anonymous Cambridge University photograph and shows McLaren apparently seated, leaning with her left arm and hand on a shelf or chair back, and wearing a black jacket and red blouse.
Pinned behind are several images informed by McLaren’s own artistic tastes. A chart of human embryonic development to the 56th day is flanked by two postcards: Adam and Eve (1528) by Lucas Cranach the Elder (1472-1553) [Uffizi] and Portrait of a man of the Delves family (1577) [Walker Gallery, Liverpool]. In the foreground is a test-tube rack with three-test tubes and a white laboratory mouse. These are reminiscent of a well-known 1958 photograph taken by John Biggers at the time of his and McLaren’s announcement (via Nature) of the first successful mouse birth by embryos developed in vitro.