The Tooth Puller, plate nine from Selection of Pictures from Venetian Collections

<p>Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo made several small paintings to gratify the 18th-century predilection for images of contemporary Venetian life. His depictions of common people, Carnival, and the improvisational commedia dell’arte theater grew in popularity when translated into print by Jacopo Leonardis. <em>The Tooth Puller </em> shows a festival scene in which a quack dentist operates on a helpless victim writhing in pain; meanwhile his colleague waves an extracted tooth and rants at the largely indifferent revelers. The text below, added by Leonardis, further lampoons the prankster’s conduct:Now with his voice, now with his hand <br />Now money, now teeth extracts the Charlatan.</p>