Details

L'Operateur Menteur

HC.J.16.X.15

Pierre Landry (Engraver)

Copper-plate engraving on paper by Pierre Landry (c.1630-c.1701) after the oil painting Der Zahnarzt by Theodor Rombouts (c. 1597-c.1637) but with several alterations. An etching of this painting, with one figure deleted on the right and another added on the left, was executed by Jean Paul Andre (1662-1753). In Landry's, the figures are the same but changes include the title and additions, such as shelves and pharmacy jars in te background, a few lines advocating the virtues of wine, etc, blood oozing from the patient's mouth, and scrolls recording comments by various members of the group. The most interesting features of all three (original painting and two subsequent engravings) are the somewhat disorderly collection of surgical instruments displayed on the table inculding a hand drill and forceps. The tooth drawer, looking at the view rather than his patient as he uses dental forceps to bloody effect, wears a necklace of teeth typical of the seventeenth century dental mountebank (quack doctor).

Seventeenth century