An alchemist's laboratory inhabited by monkeys: to the right they are shown calling at the poorhouse, destitute after their obsessive, fruitless experiments. Etching by P. van der Borcht, ca. 1580.
- Borcht, Petrus van der, 1545-1608.
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Brinkman, loc. cit., explores the connections between the prints of an alchemist by Pieter Bruegel (1558) and by Maarten de Vos (1570), and this print by Van der Borcht, which reconstructs the scene as a singerie. He concludes that the present is the later, and loses some of the satirical symbolism of the first two, such as the alchemist throwing his last coin into his experimenting apparatus
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Docta etiam sanos plantis haurite liquores, / Queis aegro medicam sedula praestet opem. Pour guarir maladie et tout mal qu'endommage, / Ils distilent ici diuerse herbe en breuuage ...
Physical description
1 print : etching ; platemark 19.6 x 28 cm
Publications note
A. Brinkman, De alchemist in de prentkunst, Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1982, pp. 41-43
Reference
Wellcome Library no. 17512i
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- Latin
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Credit
An alchemist's laboratory inhabited by monkeys: to the right they are shown calling at the poorhouse, destitute after their obsessive, fruitless experiments. Etching by P. van der Borcht, ca. 1580. Credit: Wellcome Collection. CC BY
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