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The painting shows a surgical operator approaching a young woman in order to extract a tooth. One of the themes of the painting is the contrast between the two figures: he is old, she is young; his clothes are drab and scruffy, hers are colourful and neat; he is dirty and unshaven, she is well-scrubbed. At the centre of the composition, her clean pink hand is juxtaposed to his mottled grey hand, his grimy fingernails to her clear-skinned neck. She is trustingly exposing her person, he is deceptively hiding behind his back the instrument of his imminent assault. The painter was a professor at the academy of fine arts in Urbino, and one of his paintings is in the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna in Rome. He was a contemporary of the composer Giacomo Puccini, some of whose operas are likewise composed of sordid events among working people rather than the high deeds of gods or princes.
Title
A Toothdrawer Concealing the Key from the Patient
Medium
oil on canvas
Measurements
H 52 x W 38.5 cm
Accession number
44610i
Acquisition method
purchased by Henry S. Wellcome, c.1900–1936
Work type
Painting
Inscription description
L. Nezzo
