A carnival with a crowd watching a charlatan and a tooth-puller

Faustino Bocchi may have been a pupil of Angelo Everardi, called Fiamminghino, which would account for his familiarity with Flemish 'low-life' subjects and Boschian motifs. Here, Bocchi's distinctive figures draw a wine cooler from a well and roll a giant wedge of cheese in the foreground, while crowds beyond gather around stages, entertained by the cures of a charlatan and a tooth-puller. The inscription, placed characteristically on the cheese wrapper at lower center, is typical of the artist's playful wit.

Bocchi's humorous and satirical works were prized by contemporary collectors, and his studio in Brescia was known as a gathering place for convivial conversation and music—the artist himself was an accomplished player of the cetra. Though Bocchi spent his entire career in Brescia and apparently never travelled, his bambocciate achieved considerable fame in the Veneto and beyond, with three works reaching the Medici collections at the Palazzo Pitti in Florence.