A toothdrawer concealing the key from the patient. Oil painting by Luciano Nezzo.

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 Luciano Nezzo (b. 1856) 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. However, as in Puccini, morals are nothing to do with class: the operator conceals the dental instrument behind his back, not to deceive her but to avoid causing her fright. Concealment of the instrument in order to avoid 'terrifying the patient' is an old surgical practice

Another painting of a dentist concealing the instrument from the patient (in this case a child) was painted by Edward Hughes in 1866 and offered for sale by Sotheby's, London, 19 November 2008, lot 118

1 painting : oil on canvas ; canvas 52 x 38.5 cm

L. Nezzo

Wellcome Collection 44610i

Exhibited in "Teeth" at Wellcome Collection, 17 May - 16 September 2018