A travelling tooth-drawer and medicine vendor in a town near Rome. Engraving by A.L. Richter, ca. 1834, after D.W. Lindau.

The medicine vendor sits on horseback, centre, holding a sword. He has snakes around his neck and shoulders. In front of him, a man who has had a tooth extracted: with his finger he feels the cavity where the tooth had been. Left, the vendor's assistant, on foot, blowing a trumpet to attract the crowd; he has a chest of medicines suspended in front of him. Left, right, and in the backgrounds, townsfolk and buildings. In the right foreground, a cobbler. Next to the horse, a woman with her hand on her cheek indicates that she wishes to have a tooth extracted

Proskauer interprets the action of the tooth-drawer as meaning that he has used the sword to prise out the tooth. It is possible however that he is only using the sword to display the tooth. It is possible that the man who acts as if he has had a tooth extracted is really a colleague of the tooth-drawer

[Germany] : Sächs. Kunstverein [?], [1834?]

1 print : line engraving and etching ; platemark 23.2 x 35.7 cm

Der Zahnbrecher in einem roemischen Staedtchen. Gem. von Lindau ; Gest. v. A.L. Richter. Angekauft vom Saechsischen Kunstvereine auf das Jahr 1834. 1 Elle 16 Zöll breit, 1 Elle 4 Zöll hoch

Joh. Fr. Hoff, Verzeichnis des gesamten graphischen Werkes von Adrian Ludwig Richter, no. 241, IV

C. Proskauer, Iconographia odontologica, Hildesheim 1967, no. 140, p. 214

Heinz E. Lässig and Rainer A. Müller, Die Zahnheilkunde in Kunst- und Kulturgeschichte, Köln: DuMont, 1999, p. 183, fig. 323 (reproduced).

Wellcome Collection 659102i

After: a painting by Lindau said to be in Ārzemju mākslas muzejs (Latvian Museum of Foreign Art)--Proskauer, loc. cit.