Germany, 1582 copy (text tradition c. 1532–1535)
The Fifth Parable: The Two-Headed Figure
One winged body wears two heads, a gold-lit man and a silver-lit woman, clutching an egg and a mirror-bright shield.
- Work
- Splendor Solis (Splendour of the Sun)
- Artist / creator
- Unknown illuminator (text attributed to Salomon Trismosin)
- Origin & date
- German, 1582 copy (text tradition attributed to Salomon Trismosin, c. 1532–1535)
- Held by
- British Library (Harley MS 3469, f.19v)
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 single winged body carries two heads: one male and rendered in gold, one female and rendered in silver, each haloed in its own metal’s light. The figure holds an egg in one hand and a mirror-bright shield in the other. This is alchemy’s rebis, the "double thing," a standard way of picturing the union of the two principles the whole manuscript has been building toward, sulfur (hot, active, solar, gold) and mercury (cool, receptive, lunar, silver), joined in one body rather than merely mixed in a jar. The egg names the vessel the union still has to pass through, the philosophical egg in which the material gestates toward the Stone. The reflective shield is worth pausing on: it puts self-recognition, not just chemistry, into the image, since medieval alchemical writing often folded spiritual transformation into the material one.
About this reproduction
- Faithful reproduction of a public-domain work, sourced from British Library (Harley MS 3469, f.19v)’s open-access release.
- Printed to order on archival cotton-rag stock, pigment inks rated 100+ years.
- Color-managed to the source scan.
- Available as a Gold-Foil Premium Edition — a metallic accent print evoking the illuminator’s gold, for a piece from one of the tradition’s luminous, gilded manuscripts.
- Ships in 5–8 business days; satisfaction guaranteed.
