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French Dentist Shewing a Specimen of his Artificial Teeth and False Palates

HC.J.16.X.9

Thomas Rowlandson (Artist), Thomas Tegg (Publisher)

Hand coloured engraving on paper by Thomas Rowlandson (1756-1827) and published on 26th February 1811 by Thomas Tegg (1776-1845), 11 Cheapside, London. A caricature of Nicholas Dubois de Chemant (b.1753), the inventor of dentures made from 'mineral paste.' Up until the end of the eighteenth century dentures were generally made of ivory or real teeth and were both unhygenic and susceptable to decay. Porcelain teeth were often badly fitting, uncomfortable and unrealistic but at least were more hygenic. Their appearance attracted some level of ridicule and this is one example of such a piece. Chemant originally worked in Paris under Alexis Duchateau (1714-1792) who invented the mineral process in the 1740s but had not perfected it. Chemant overcame firing issues of shrinkage and patented the design in France. However he fled Paris in 1792 from the French Revolution and set up in London, obtaining a fourteen year manufacturing patent. By 1804 he claimed to have made over 12,000 false teeth. For a number of years Wedgewood supplied Chemant with the porcelain paste to make the dentures. In this burlesque, the dentist is portrayed wearing a bag-wig and ear-rings. He is apparently well satisfied with the dentures which he has fitted in the mouth of a very corpulant middle-aged woman, who is proud to exhibit her recent acquisitions. An elderly dandy (judging by his teeth a potential client) studies the 'masterpieces' with admiration through a quizzing-glass. The wall poster reads: MINERAL TEETH Monsieur de Charmant from Paris engages to affix from one tooth to a whole set without pain. Mouns. D. can also affix an artificial Palate or a glass Eye in a manner perculiar to himself. He also distills.