The Alembic
The Collection
Every piece is a faithful, museum-grade reproduction of a public-domain masterwork, printed on archival stock and named to its source.
Germany, 1582 copy (text tradition c. 1532–1535)
Splendor Solis
Gold, the sun, and the alchemist’s Great Work in eight surviving miniatures.
Arma Artis — The Arms of the Art
British Library (Harley MS 3469, f.2)
The Knight Upon Two Fountains
British Library (Harley MS 3469, f.7)
The First Parable: Miners at the Rock
British Library (Harley MS 3469, f.13v)
The Fifth Parable: The Two-Headed Figure
British Library (Harley MS 3469, f.19v)
Three Birds Contend Within the Vessel
British Library (Harley MS 3469, f.24)
The Three-Headed Dragon of the Sun
British Library (Harley MS 3469, f.26)
The Peacock’s Tail
British Library (Harley MS 3469, f.28)
The Sun Rises Over the City
British Library (Harley MS 3469, f.33v)
Oppenheim, Germany, 1617–1618
The Emblem Books
Fifty engravings, fifty mottoes, one restless search for the Philosophers’ Stone.
Go to the Woman Washing Clothes
Wikimedia Commons
Join the Brother and the Sister
Wikimedia Commons
The Dragon Devouring Its Own Tail
Wikimedia Commons
Circle, Square, Triangle, Circle
Wikimedia Commons
The Woman at the Furnace
Wikimedia Commons
The Wolf Devours the King
Wikimedia Commons
The King’s Vapor Bath
Wikimedia Commons
The Sleeping Hermaphrodite
Wikimedia Commons
Nature, Reason, Experience, and Reading
Wikimedia Commons
The Dragon and the Woman
Wikimedia Commons
Frankfurt, 1550 (this selection also draws on a 1610 Basel reprint)
The Rosarium
A king and queen, twenty woodcuts, and the alchemical marriage from courtship to gold.
The Fountain of Mercury
SLUB Dresden (Saxon State and University Library)
The Meeting of Sol and Luna
Wellcome Collection, London
Immersion in the Bath
Wellcome Collection, London
Coniunctio sive Coitus
Wellcome Collection, London
Conceptio seu Putrefactio
SLUB Dresden (Saxon State and University Library)
Extraction of the Soul
SLUB Dresden (Saxon State and University Library)
Ablutio vel Mundificatio
SLUB Dresden (Saxon State and University Library)
Perfectionis Ostensio — The Rebis Crowned
SLUB Dresden (Saxon State and University Library)
England & the Rhineland, 16th–17th c.
Hermetic Diagrams & Scrolls
Cosmic monochords, self-devouring dragons, and a scroll that ends in confessed failure.
Ripley Scroll — Beinecke Mellon MS 41
Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Yale University
%2C_ca._1700.jpg&w=3840&q=75)
Ripley Scroll — Getty Research Institute, 950053
Getty Research Institute — Manly Palmer Hall Collection of Alchemical Manuscripts
Ripley Scroll — Huntington Library, mssHM 30313
The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens
The Divine Monochord
Deutsche Fotothek, Saxon State and University Library Dresden (SLUB)
Mirror of the Whole of Nature
Wellcome Collection, London
The First Key
Science History Institute, Philadelphia
The Fourth Key
Science History Institute, Philadelphia
The Seventh Key
Science History Institute, Philadelphia
The Ninth Key
Science History Institute, Philadelphia