Doctor Botherum, the mountebank [graphic].
Found In:
Medical Historical Library, Cushing/Whitney Medical Library > Doctor Botherum, the mountebank [graphic].
Description
- Title
- Doctor Botherum, the mountebank [graphic].
- Creator
- Rowlandson, Thomas, 1756-1827, printmaker
- Contributor
- Ackermann, Rudolph, 1764-1834, publisher.
- Published / Created
- [6 March 1800]
- Publication Place
- London
- Publisher
- Pubd. 6 March 1800 at R. Ackermann's Repository of the Arts, 101 Strand
- Abstract
-
"From the bustle and life visible on all sides it would seem that the period is fair-time, when the rustics and agricultural population of the vicinity in general flock into the town, holiday-making. A travelling mountebank has established his theatre in the market place; the person of the ingenious charlatan is decked out in a fine court dress, with bag wig, powder, sword, and laced hat complete, the better to excite the respect of his audience; he is holding forth on the marvellous properties ascribed to the nostrums which he is seeking to palm off on the simple villagers as wonder-working elixirs; while his attendants, Merry Andrew and Jack Pudding, are going through their share of the performance. One branch of the mountebank physician's profession was the drawing of teeth; an unfortunate sufferer is submitting himself to the hands of the empiric's assistant. The rural audience is stolidly contemplating the antics of the party, without being particularly moved by Dr. Botherum's imposing eloquence, these vagabond scamps being frequently clever rogues, blessed with an inexhaustible fund of bewildering oratory, and witty repartee at glib command. Leaving the quack, we find plentiful and suggestive materials to employ the humourist's skilful graver scattered around. In the centre, a scene of jealousy is displayed; the beguilements of a portly butcher are prevailing against the assumed privileges of a slip-shod tailor, who is seemingly tempted to have recourse to his sheers, to cut the amorous entanglement summarily asunder. On the left, the promiscuous and greedy feeding associated with 'fairings,' is going busily forward, and on the opposite side are exhibited all the drolleries which can be got out of a Jew pedlar, his pack, the diversified actions of customers he is trying to tempt with his wares, and the bargains for finery into which the fair and softer sex are vainly trying to beguile the cunning Hebrew on their own accounts. It seems probable that Rowlandson in his print of Doctor Botherum may have had a certain Doctor Bossy in his eye, a German practitioner of considerable skill, who enjoyed a comfortable private practice, said to have been the last of the respectable charlatans who exhibited in the British metropolis. This benevolent empiric, as Angelo informs us, dispensed medicines and practised the healing art, publicly and gratuitously on a stage, his booth being erected weekly in the midst of Covent-Garden Market, where the mountebank, handsomely dressed and wearing a gold-laced cocked hat, arrived in his chariot with a liveried servant behind. According to the old custom, the itinerant quack-doctor, with his attendant gang, was as constant a visitor at every market-place as the pedlar with his pack."--Grego
- Description
-
Title etched below image.
Attributed to Rowlandson by Grego.
Sheet trimmed within plate mark.
Twelve lines of verse below image, six on either side of title: High o'er the gaping crowd, on market day, while Andrew drolls the blockheads pence away ...
Not in the Catalogue of prints and drawings in the British Museum. Division I, political and personal satires.
Temporary local Medical Library subject terms: Mountebanks -- Tooth Extraction -- Dr. Bossey.
1 print : aquatint and etching, hand-colored ; sheet 373 x 433 mm. - Extent
- 1 print : sheet 38 x 43.4 cm
- Language
-
English
Collection Information
- Repository
- Medical Historical Library, Cushing/Whitney Medical Library
- Call Number
- Print10026
Subjects, Formats, And Genres
- Genre
-
Satires (Visual works) England 1800
Aquatints England London 1800
Etchings England London 1800
Watermarks (Paper) - Material
- aquatint and etching ; and laid paper hand-colored.
- Resource Type
- still image
- Subject (Topic)
-
Quacks and quackery
Teeth
Extraction
Jews
City & town life
Plazas
Medicine shows
Audiences
Crowds
Peddlers
Butchers - Subjects
-
Quacks and quackery
Teeth > Extraction
Jews
City & town life
Plazas
Medicine shows
Audiences
Crowds
Peddlers
Butchers
England > 1800
England > London > 1800
Riviere & Son > Binding
Auchincloss, Hugh Dudley > Ownership
Harvey, Francis > Ownership
Access And Usage Rights
- Access
- Public
- Rights
- The use of this image may be subject to the copyright law of the United States (Title 17, United States Code) or to site license or other rights management terms and conditions. The person using the image is liable for any infringement.
Identifiers
- Orbis Record
- 12823361
- Object ID (OID)
- 17339952