Oppenheim, Germany, 1617–1618
The King’s Vapor Bath
A crowned figure sits in a steam bath, undergoing a cure for melancholy that alchemists mapped onto the refining of a base metal.
- Work
- Atalanta Fugiens, Emblema XXVIII
- Artist / creator
- Michael Maier (author); engraved by Matthäus Merian the Elder
- Origin & date
- 1617/1618, Oppenheim, Germany — early modern alchemical emblematics
- Held by
- Wikimedia Commons
Format
The full-resolution color-managed file — yours to print, study, and keep.
Size
Available as a digital download only — this scan’s resolution doesn’t hold up cleanly as a physical print at any size.
$24.00
The story
A king, seated within an arched steam chamber — a Laconicum, the classical vapor bath — is attended while heat and moisture work on him. The motto reads: "Rex balneatur in Laconico sedens, atrâque bile liberatur à Pharut" — the king, seated, is bathed in the Laconicum, and is freed from black bile by Pharut. In the prose that follows, the king is described as having grown melancholic and diminished among his fellow princes; the bath, prescribed by his physician, sweats the excess black bile from his body and restores his former dignity. Alchemically, the ailing king stood for a base or "sick" metal, and the therapeutic bath for the gentle, moist heat used to purge its impurities before it could be brought to a nobler state — medicine and metallurgy sharing a single cure.
About this reproduction
- Faithful reproduction of a public-domain work, sourced from Wikimedia Commons’s open-access release.
- Printed to order on archival cotton-rag stock, pigment inks rated 100+ years.
- Color-managed to the source scan.
- Ships in 5–8 business days; satisfaction guaranteed.
