Village Surgeon

Vaillant’s mezzotints with genre themes also reproduce picturesque countryside or tavern scenes after Adriaen Brouwer and Cornelis Bega. Both painters depicted unattractive or even repulsive types, such as drunkards, lechers or simpletons. This sheet is traditionally known as the „Village Surgeon“, though on closer examination this title fails to convince - we may be witnessing the repair of a peasant's shoe.