Fair as the Moon, Riding the Lion

A crowned woman rides a golden lion beneath a sun that holds the crescent moon inside it.

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

The full-resolution color-managed file — yours to print, study, and keep.

Size

Sized to protect print quality — this scan’s resolution supports sizes up to 18x24 cleanly.

$24.00

The story

A crowned woman in a pale gown rides side-saddle on a golden lion, and the lion wears a small sun on its chest. Above them, in a parting of the clouds, a sun with a face holds the crescent moon inside its disc. The caption below is the Song of Songs: Quae est ista, quae progreditur quasi Aurora, pulchra ut Luna, who is she that looks forth as the morning, fair as the moon. A second line adds Luna sub pedibus ejus, the moon under her feet. Page 78 is one of the least crowded in the Thesaurus thesaurorum: no furnace, no flask. The painter lets the queen and her lion stand for the white stage of the work and leaves the rest of the sheet empty.

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