Visiting  the  Quack  Doctor

Hogarth, William (1697 London 1764). The Visit to the Quack Doctor. Engraving by Carl Heinrich Rahl (Hoffenheim 1779 – Vienna 1843). (1818/23.) Inscribed: 23. / Plate 3. 21 x 26.6 cm.

Marriage à la Mode III. – The third plate of this

“ most  beautiful  painted  satire  of  the  century ”

(Dobson in Thieme-Becker).

“ The poor man got into fine hands! We find him at the Dr. de la Pillule … A girl that was handed over to him as the pure lovely innocence shows in every of her features why, by whom, and what for she took pills; the pill-box in her hand, in that of the count, and between his knees show how many have been taken. One could get afraid at the Dr. Pill-Man as from all realms of nature the figures appear … New pills will have to compensate everything in the end ”

the subtext of a German edition says while Lichtenberg concludes his reflections on this plate with the words

“ Beside the poison-cupboard Hogarth has placed, as seems to me, capitally, two mummies. Obviously they see down with proud-disdainful look at all quack doctor bustle and all medicine-jumble of this world from their infinite safety and after their millennial peace with the healing faculty; and that one can do so if one is – a mummy. ”

“ The overcoat and hat of the doctor thrown onto the floor are evidence of bustling activity, haste to save and large practice ” .

Monsieur de la Pillule, identified by the way as the ill-famed Dr. Misaubin from Hamburg, is not only expert on the field of French illness, but also inventor of two elaborate machines examined and found for good by the Royal Academy of Sciences at Paris: for straightening the shoulders and pulling corks. “By ‘uncorking’ it succeeds to rights again the reputation of a ‘patient’ within the high life”, meaning to cure again certain results (Catalogue Zurich in departure from the usual interpretations deducing from this the possibility of an abortion by cure by magic formulas).

And characteristic enough for the bad fate that will catch up with him soon the young count Squanderfield not just sits in front of the open mummy’s cabinet, the tripod on the board above is just – see Industry & Idleness XI – a double of the gallows at Tyburn. The crocodile hanging below the ceiling, however, has lost much of its fatness through the years since Hudibras beats Sidrophel.
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– – – The same in engraving by Ernst Ludwig Riepenhausen (1765 Göttingen 1840, university engraver there). Inscribed: 23. / W Hogarth inv. & pinx. / Riepenhausen del. & sculps. 23.5 x 28.5 cm. – Impression on slightly toned minor paper. – Riepenhausen’s engravings after Hogarth (“very estimable”, Nagler) belong to his chief work and not least for their side-correctness they are partly even preferred to Hogarth’s own engravings.
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Complete copies of the set and further single plates available .