Let's take care of our teeth! Africa. Circa 1920.

Vintage gelatin silver print. Dimensions: 10.9 x 15 cm. Offered framed, with a custom-made passe-partout featuring a window at the base for reading an informative caption, handwritten on the backing: “Photograph taken by Dr. Carlos Sobieski on his scientific journey through Africa = Dedicated as a memento to the kind and esteemed friend Dr. N. Pérsico. Buenos Aires, February 12, 1925. Signed: Sobieski.” Framed print.

Regarding the striking image, we choose to imagine that it is a staged scene for the photograph. It shows three indigenous people in a “dentist's office” in the heart of Africa. The practitioner, with a stone in his right hand, is preparing to deliver the final blow to an instrument that is being used as a lever in the patient's mouth. The third, behind him, holds the head of the suffering victim.

The enigma of the image deepens when one seeks information about its author. According to Carlos E. Solivérez, Carlos Sobieski was none other than Archduke Juan/Joseph Salvador of Tuscany—son of Grand Duke Leopold II of Tuscany—who used various names: Jean Orth, Carlos Sobieski, and Juan Otten in Argentina. As Juan Orth, he was last seen in Montevideo; apparently, the ship he was traveling on, a three-masted vessel acquired with his savings, was wrecked in a storm off Cape Horn en route to Valparaíso.

A surprising story behind a photograph that is full of enigmas.