Quae Genus with a Quack Doctor
Medium
Hand-colored etching and aquatint
Dimensions
Sheet: 5 1/2 × 8 13/16 in. (14 × 22.4 cm)
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1959
Accession Number
59.533.1642(11)
Rights
Public Domain
Tags
Art Historical Context
"Quae Genus with a Quack Doctor," published on October 1, 1821, is a hand-colored etching and aquat by a collaborative team: writer William Combe, caricaturist Thomas Rowlandson printer J. Diggens, and publisher Rudolph Ack of London. Measuring just 5½ × 8⅞ inches, this compact print from the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Elisha Whittelsey Collection captures the satirical spirit of Regency-era Britain, where Ackermann's Repository of Arts popularized such affordable, colorful caricatures for a wide audience. Rowlandson, renowned for his humorous and often bawdy depictions of social follies, teams here with Combe—famous for their "Dr. Syntax" adventure series—to lampoon a "quack doctor," a charlatan peddling dubious cures amid figures of men and women. Hand-coloring enhances the etching's fine lines and aquatint's subtle tones, bringing vivid life to exaggerated expressions and chaotic scenes that mocked pseudoscience and gullible society. This print exemplifies the golden age of British satire, reflecting early 19th-century anxieties over medical quackery while delighting viewers with its wit and technical finesse. A testament to printmaking's democratic reach, it invites us to chuckle at timeless human foibles.
About the Artist
William Combe|Thomas Rowlandson|J. Diggens|Rudolph Ackermann, London (British|British) · 1742 |1757 –1823 |1827
British, London 1742–1823 London|British, London 1757–1827 London