Full Record |
| Title |
An Itinerant Tooth-Drawer Performing on a Stage |
| Alternative Title |
The Charlatan |
| Collection |
Wellcome Library |
| Artist |
Attributed to French School |
| Date Earliest |
1800 |
| Date Latest |
1900 |
| Description |
This is a nineteenth-century painting of an itinerant tooth-drawer performing on a stage. Dentists, like doctors, were often seen as quacks and tooth pulling was often a fairground attraction. This follows the popular seventeenth-century Dutch and Flemish tradition of scenes from everyday life in which the professions of medicine and dentistry were often lampooned. This work many be by a French painter, about 1860. |
| Current Accession Number |
44636i |
| Former Accession Number |
CC 8485 or 3485 |
| Subject |
figure; everyday life; landscape |
| Measurements |
19.3 x 24.5 cm cm (estimate) |
| Material |
oil on canvas |
| Acquisition Details |
Bequeathed by Henry Solomon Wellcome 1936. |
| Provenance |
Purchased from M. Bouchery Bénézit, 9 Rue des Beaux Arts, Paris, 12 June 1933, 700 fr (£5 12s 6d) as The Charlatan; in the collection of Henry Solomon Wellcome, 12 June 1933. |
| Notes |
The figures are wearing unusual types of costume as one is wearing a skirt and the other a harlequin patterned outfit. A painting by Matthijs Naiveu, Candle-lit Interior (Museum Boijimans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam) shows an interior with an Harlequin figure in it and this is dated about 1700. |
| Rights Owner |
(c) The Wellcome Trust |
| Author |
Dr Madeleine Korn |
