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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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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.
Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
About this work
Description
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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Lettering
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
Type/Technique
Language
- Latin
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