Genre scenes of kwaksolvers might depict them performing surgery to the legs, feet, or head (removing the "stone of folly"), extracting teeth, and offering patent medicines.

The scene takes place during a fair, when laws and guild regulations were loosened, and outside merchants had the freedom to sell their wares.

[3] The location can be determined by the town gate, windmill, and bridge in the background: this is Dou's studio in Galgewater, Leiden.

[2] Dou may be comforting his higher-class audience by suggesting that they are above the pictured fray, or he may be expressing reservations about his own occupation's use of deception.

The composition includes a living tree and a dead tree—a familiar motif of choice—perhaps implying that only the artistic use of deceit is morally permissible.