Object Record
Images
Metadata
Title |
Trouble comes to the Alchemist |
Object Name |
Painting |
Object ID |
FA 2000.001.269 |
Description |
During a uroscopy for a female patient, a woman from the window above empties her chamber pot onto the iatrochemist. On the table before him are a mortar and pestle, a variety of flasks and containers, a human skull, an hourglass, a celestial globe, and books. A cello, traditionally a symbol of love and warning about sexual promiscuity, is seen in the left foreground. The poem on the table, attributed to Socrates, implies that the furious woman above is like Xanthippe, the Greek philosopher's famously shrewish wife. It reads: "I knew well woman, it's no wonder, it would rain, after this thunder." |
Artist |
Uknown (17th century Netherlandish) |
Date |
ca. 1700s-1900s |
Dimensions |
H-31 W-22.25 inches |
Material |
Oil Paint on Canvas |
Medium |
Painting |
Collection |
Fisher Collection |
Search Terms |
Alchemy Painting Eighteenth century Nineteenth century Alchemists Laboratories |
Provenance |
Fisher Scientific International Inc., Hampton, NH Fisher Scientific, Pittsburgh, PA Koetser Galleries, London, n.d. |