Davison (William, of Alnwick)

a charmingly naive pair of social satires by Davison (1781-1858), a North Country pharmacist, printmaker and publisher, on the contrasting urban and rural dental practices, after the rather more proficiently executed pair of the same compositions by Robert Dighton. One depicts the village blacksmith using the crude tools of his trade to pull a tooth from a woman who has to be restrained by an assistant holding her head, while the blacksmith pins her down with his knee for extra purchase, she meanwhile pinches his nose very hard to help relieve some of her agony, an unhappy looking young boy, possibly her son, stands behind the blacksmith weilding a besom as if to beat him, while another boy looks in through the window enjoying the commotion, and a one-eyed man stands in the background either weilding an even larger agricultural implement or operating the bellows for the fire. The other scene, in stark contrast, depicts an elegantly attired city dentist, in frock coat and long-tailed wig, pulling the tooth from the gaping mouth of a lady seated in an armchair in a neat interior, her maid looking on in distress, echoed by a hissing cat at the dentist’s feet, while a young black servant turns grinning towards the viewer,

hand-coloured etchings, each c.170 x 240 mm. (6 3/4 x 9 1/2 in), pale even browning, [BM Satires not described, but c.f. BM Satires 6759 for Dighton],