Believed to be a fragment of an engraving printed from the original copperplate after it had ceased to be of use for printing engravings. The copper sheet was cut up and the top right corner, used to print the top left corner of the engraving, was turned over and used as the support (in place of the more usual canvas or wood) for an oil painting, a not uncommon fate for engraved copperplates. It had ceased to be of use as the source of engravings because the engravings were made to advertise the services of an English travelling healer, possibly Sir William Read (d. 1715), and after his death there was nothing to advertise. Read was oculist to Queen Anne, travelled around England treating people for cataract, cancer and other diseases, flaunted his services to charity and received a knighthood for his charitable services. If the dates mentioned as (e.g.) "66" mean 1666, then it would be too early for Read and must refer to one of his predecessors, possibly John Russel, physician and oculist near Gray's Inn, Holborn, who issued a similar broadsheet but with woodcuts instead of engravings. Anticlockwise from the top right, the sheet shows part of the royal coat of arms; surgical instruments used by operators such as Read; (top right) details of the cure of the gun wound in the chest of Richard Gray, servant to the Earl of Bedford at Woburn in [16?]66 (the fifth Earl of Bedford became the first Duke of Bedford in 1694); description of the cure of the breast cancer of Widow White of Dorchester in [16?]72; and cure of a rodent disease of the face suffered by Anne Clarke of Bere (possibly Bere Regis in Dorset) in [16?]78
