Acute Pain – Antique Dental Caricature, 1810

Humorous hand-coloured etching depicting an early nineteenth-century tooth extraction. The smiling dentist pulls on a cord fastened around the troublesome tooth while his unfortunate patient recoils in obvious agony.

The composition is after John Collier (1708–1786), better known by his pseudonym “Tim Bobbin,” an English caricaturist celebrated for his broadly comic observations of human behaviour. It appeared in The Passions Humourously Delineated by Timothy Bobbin, Esq., a series that included several memorably alarming scenes of early dentistry.

Published in London by Edward Orme on 4 June 1810. Orme was a prominent British engraver, printseller and publisher who served as engraver to King George III and the Prince of Wales.

Inscribed below image:
ACUTE PAIN
Pub. June 4, 1810, by Edw. Orme, London.

Medium: Hand-coloured etching on paper
Date: 1810
Artist: After John Collier, known as “Tim Bobbin”
Publisher: Edward Orme, London

Dimensions: Approx 27 x 21 cm