Count Palatine

An elegant man dressed in luxurious clothes, wearing a wig and a chain around his neck, is pulling out the tooth of another whose face is distorted by the pain. In the foreground, on the left, another bent over is vomiting, while on the right a person sitting with his back bent over is also a victim of this peculiar dentist's methods. Behind the latter, on a piece of furniture, one can see all sorts of bottles of drugs that he applies to his patients.

The figure who is having a tooth pulled out is the one on whom Goya worked most carefully, using the drypoint for the parallel lines of his shirt and legs. With the use of aquatint he obtained a light tone in the foreground and a medium tone in the background. He has also left a few reserves of varnish for the flasks and bottles on the piece of furniture in the background.

The manuscript in the Prado Museum clearly explains engraving no. 33, about which the following is said: "In all sciences there are charlatans who, without having studied the word, know everything and find a remedy for everything. Do not trust what they say. The true sage is always suspicious of accuracy: he promises little and delivers much; but the Count Palatine does not deliver anything of what he promises".

Goya denounced the practices of all those who claimed to be able to solve certain health problems, but in the end caused nothing but inconvenience. The Aragonese painter calls for scientific knowledge based on a thorough training that would enable us to deal with this type of circumstances with a certain foundation.

The most difficult part of the interpretation of this engraving is the identity that could be hidden behind the name of Count Palatino. Perhaps it refers to the minister Mariano Luis de Urquijo (Bilbao, 1769-Paris, 1817) known for his repressive governmental system and the famous ostentation of his toilette. It has also been thought that the painter was alluding to Count Cagliostro (Palermo, 1743-Urbino, 1795), an occultist and physician who was sentenced to life imprisonment and ended his days in the dungeons of the castle of San Leon in the marchiggiana town of Urbino.