The painting depicts a renowned late 19th-century French surgeon, Dr Péan. It is interesting to compare this scene with the one painted by Thomas Eakins in "The Agnew Clinic," executed during the same era.  In both paintings, prominent surgeons are lecturing to observers and the patients are women with exposed breasts. In "Before the Operation" the woman patient looks seductive, her lips partially open, her hair flowing off the bed, her body young and vulnerable. Dr. Péan is a central figure who stands directly above the patient while other assistants and observers crowd around her.  "The Agnew Clinic," however, shows a highly professional scene, with the medical figures all dressed in medical garb, a nurse sternly supervising at the foot of the bed, Dr. Agnew standing at a remove from the patient, and the operating theater observers separated from the surgery by a physical enclosure.  The patient's face is small and only partially visible.  The focus is on a surgical procedure and on Agnew.

"Before the Operation" gives prominence to the surgeon but the patient is also foregrounded, and sensualized -- the scene becomes provocative, voyeuristic.  One almost questions its ethicality.  Was the woman put to sleep only because the surgeon wanted to put her on display and lecture over her?  What was she told in advance?  The Musée d'Orsay where the painting resides states that artist Gervex conveyed in this work "a message of modernity and hope."  To me, however, the painting is strangely disturbing.  And it is noteworthy that the Musée d'Orsay web site displays the picture in standard small size but with a sensational blowup of the patient's upper body.