The Toothpuller

The Toothpuller, dated around 1608 and attributed to Caravaggio's circle or followers, belongs to the genre of painful medical procedures that fascinated Italian Baroque painters. The dentist extracts a tooth by candlelight while the patient grips the chair in agony — a scene of ordinary suffering rendered with the naturalistic observation Caravaggio had made the defining mode of Italian painting. Whether by Caravaggio himself or a close follower working in his manner, the painting demonstrates how thoroughly his method had transformed the range of subjects available to serious art: the body in pain, the face in extremity, the concentrated light on a nocturnal scene of everyday life.

The grimacing patient and the concentrated dentist create a dramatic focal point, while the surrounding onlookers' varied expressions — from sympathy to amusement — provide a narrative richness. The handling of light on faces and hands follows Caravaggio's characteristic single-source illumination.