Object Record
Images
Metadata
Title |
The Alchemist in his Workshop |
Object Name |
Painting |
Object ID |
FA 2000.003.029 |
Description |
This lively and richly decorated chamber presents an alchemist's workshop which is busy, productive, and filled with customers and assistants. At center, the alchemist himself- dressed in a fine satin coat with slash sleeves- sits examining a flask of urine for a young female customer and her older chaperone. A table covered with a luxurious carpet and many books sits before him, as well as a celestial globe and numerous earthenware vessels. At left and right, young assistants carry jars and tend small braziers with bellows. The shop is decorated with a paper print pinned to a beam, as well as a taxidermied reptile specimen hung from above, and shelves of glassware. To the back of the scene, a small crowd surrounds a dentist and his patient to watch a tooth being pulled. |
Artist |
Bossche, Circle of Balthasar van den |
Date |
1600s-1700s |
Dimensions |
H-24 W-31.5 inches |
Material |
Oil Paint, Canvas |
Medium |
Painting |
Collection |
Eddleman Collection |
Search Terms |
Alchemy in art Painting Seventeenth century Eighteenth century Alchemists Laboratories Workshop |
Provenance |
(sale, Christie's London, 20 July, 1990, lot 112). Spectrum Laboratories, Rancho Dominguez, CA, 1990-2000, acquired by Roy Eddleman. The Chemical Heritage Foundation, 2000 (from Eddleman/Spectrum). |