Two Furnaces and Their Lids

A tall furnace with a cone on top and a squat one pierced with round openings, with spare lids scattered between.

Work: Ymage de Vie, traictant des secrez des philosophes sur la fleur d'alkemie (Wellcome MS 446)
Artist / creator: Unknown French scribes; text attributed to Raymond Lull
Origin & date: France, 15th century; French and Latin
Held by: Wellcome Collection, London (MS 446)

Format

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Size

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$24.00

The story

Two furnaces share this page. On the left a tall tower with a cone-shaped top, fire glowing through its doors and small flames at every vent; on the lower right a squat block whose top is pierced with round openings for vessels. Between them hang spare lids and stoppers, each with its own small flame. A page number, 64, is written at the foot. The Wellcome catalogues this fifteenth-century Ymage de Vie as a book of processes in French and Latin by different hands, with full-page drawings of furnaces and apparatus. The little flames drawn on the loose lids show the scribe thinking about heat even in the parts that were not yet in place.

About this reproduction

Faithful reproduction of a public-domain work, sourced from Wellcome Collection, London (MS 446)’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