Credit: ©The Royal Society
    Image number: RS.17512

    Alchemist's chamber

    Date
    1652
    Creator
    Robert Vaughan (1590, British) , Engraver
    Object type
    Library reference
    16605
    Material
    Dimensions
    height (page): 187mm
    width (page): 133mm
    height (print): 142mm
    width (print): 101mm
    Subject
    Description
    Two men busy at work in an alchemist's chamber, attending to the furnaces. They are framed by an arch and the chamber appears to be located within a grand building, possibly a castle. A thick floral border containing insects and birds lines the print.

    Figure 5 from Elias Ashmole's Theatrum chemicum Britannicum: containing severall poeticall pieces of our famous English philospohers..., a compilation of alchemical literature selected and annotated by the author. This figure is the last illustration in Chapter 1: Thomas Norton’s ‘The Ordinall of Alchimy’, a poetic guide to the precise processes of alchemy, first published in 1477.

    Elias Ashmole (1617-1692) British astrologer and antiquary was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1661.
    Related fellows
    Elias Ashmole (1617 - 1692, British) , Astrologer
    Associated place
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          > United Kingdom
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