The Star in the East

A seven-pointed star marked with the planets trails a tail of gold down into a flask set in a wooden tub.

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 seven-pointed star hangs in a blue sky, each point a different colour and its centre ringed with the signs of the planets. From it a long tail of gold streams downward into a single flask standing in a wooden tub of water. The caption is Matthew, chapter two: Ubi est, qui natus est Rex, vidimus enim stellam eius in Oriente, where is he that is born King, for we have seen his star in the East. The anonymous author of the Thesaurus thesaurorum borrows the Nativity for the moment something new appears in the glass. Notice how bare the page is. The star, the falling light and the tub stand alone, as if the painter wanted the reader to wait.

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