The Ark, the Crow and the Dead Lion

The ark rides out a storm while a black crow stands on a dead lion, and three furnaces burn below.

Work: Thesaurus thesaurorum et secretum secretissimum (Wellcome MS 4775)
Artist / creator: Unknown author and illustrator
Origin & date: Probably c. 1725 (catalogue date "[1725?]"); Latin, with additions in German verse
Held by: Wellcome Collection, London (MS 4775)

Format

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Size

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$24.00

The story

At the top, the ark sits on dark water under a storm, a dove coming down through the lightning. Below it a black crow stands on the body of a lion, its tongue out, beside a scatter of bones and a skull. The crow on the carcass was a favourite alchemical sign for the blackening that comes before anything clean can appear, and the page labels the operations in Latin beneath: a mirror of the sun, putrefaction, and a whitening that begins. Three furnaces stand in a row, each with a different vessel set into its top. Page 54 of the Wellcome's Thesaurus thesaurorum puts the Flood and the rot side by side. Both are drownings, and both end in a dove.

About this reproduction

Faithful reproduction of a public-domain work, sourced from Wellcome Collection, London (MS 4775)’s open-access release.
Printed to order on archival cotton-rag stock, pigment inks rated 100+ years.
Color-managed to the source scan.
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Image courtesy of the Wellcome Collection, London, licensed CC BY 4.0.

In situ