A crowd watching a troupe of quack-doctors on a stage outside an inn. Oil painting by a Flemish painter, ca. 1640(?).

In the centre background is an inn with the inn-sign "Au monde renversé"; left, a town square, right a quack-doctor's company performing before an attentive crowd. Various stooges acting for the company are placed among the crowd to whip up their enthusiasm. On a stage, one member of the quack-doctor's troupe is claiming to apply a red-hot spatula to his thigh, producing burn-marks. Next to him the quack-doctor points to an ointment which he is holding, recommending it as an antidote to burns. Behind him is a zany or merryandrew. The backdrop to the stage is painted with scenes of the quack-doctor's remarkable cures. A woman puts her head through an opening in the backdrop, perhaps pretending to be summoned by the screams of the man who pretends to be burned.

Below, at street level, a toothdrawer is dressed in exotic costume to give the impression of bringing foreign skills from Turkey or Arabia. A crowd of people, some wealthy, others poor, look on. On the left a man on horseback, and on the far left two monks

The church tower on the left is similar to that of the church of Saint Michael in Brussels, a Jesuit church designed by Hoeymacker, modified in 1660 by Francquart, and demolished in 1832 (P. Parent, L'architecture des Pays-Bas méridionaux, 1926, p. 147)

The costumes of some of the women can be dated to 1635-1640 (B.J.A. Renckens, Riksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie, The Hague, 1981). The motif of the woman who puts her head through an opening in the back of the stage set also appears in an etching of quack-doctors on stage by Constantijn Daniel van Renesse (1626-1680) (no. 7 in Hollstein's catalogue of his prints)

[between 1600 and 1699]

1 painting : oil on canvas ; canvas 62.9 x 77.2 cm

Select images of this work were taken by the Wellcome Historical Medical Museum: WT/D/1/20/1/65/80

Possibly French or Franco-Flemish (B.J.A. Renckens, Riksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie, The Hague, 1981). There is some similarity to paintings by Willem Reuter (b. Brussels ca. 1642, went to Rome ca. 1670 and died there in 1681)

Wellcome Collection 45030i