Alchemy Laboratories

"Thus have I been wishing to reveal to you in this treatise, as far as may be lawful to me, the Stone of the Ancients, that you, too, might possess the knowledge of this highest of earthly treasures for your health and comfort in this valley of sorrow.

I write about it, not for my own good, but for that of posterity, and though my words be few and simple, that which they import is of immeasurable magnitude. Ponder them well, that you also may find the Rock which is the foundation Stone of truth, the temporal blessing, and the eternal reward." [B.V.]

Alchemist's Laboratory IN: 

'Amphitheatrum Sapientiae Aeternae' 

by Heinrich Khunrath, 1595.

"[A]n alchemical classic, the best known of Heinrich Khunrath's works. The work is infused with a strange combination of Christianity and magic, illustrated with elaborate, hand-colored, engraved plates heightened with gold and silver. The tension between spirituality and experiment, and the rich symbolism of Khunrath's writings and their engravings brought condemnation of the book by the Sorbonne in 1625, and now attracts attention from scholars." [source]

An emblem that came to be known as the 'Twelfth Key of Basil Valentine' first appeared in a book from 1599, 'Ein kurtz summarischer Tractat' (Basil Valentine). The version above ('clavis' = key) appeared in Michael Maier's 'Tripus Aureus', published by Theodore de Bry in 1622.

In vague and basic terms: as the lion transforms the serpent into its own flesh when he devours it, so the philosopher's stone has the power to transmute or transform all imperfect metals into gold; but pure gold is required as one of the ingredients.

Ahh, but how does one create the philosopher's stone? 

That is the eternal question..

'Distillatio' by Jan van der Straet, originally published in his 'Nova Reperta' series from the 1580s, as reviewed previously in Renaissance Discoveries and Inventions.

'The second Booke of Distillations, containing Sundrie
excellent Secret remedies of Distilled Waters'

Anonymous woodcut illustration of alchemist in his laboratory IN: 

'The Practise of the New and Old Phisicke' by Conrad Gesner, 1599. [source]

'A Second View of Practical Chymistry' IN: 'The Universal Magazine' [vol. 2], 1748.

Key to the figures (click picture for larger version):

"1. An iron hook to clear the grate with.
2,3,4, several sorts of tongs.
5, Iron rings to break glasses with.
6, A black-lead crucible.
7, A furnace for distilling hartshorn in quantity: a is the earthen head: b the body of the furnace, containing an iron pot.
8, A digesting furnace: a is a balneum at the end of the furnace: b, the sand bath. 9, The Balneum Mariae.
10, a melting furnace: a,b, are two small doors to the fire-place to be opened occasionally, when it is necessary only to inspect the matter acted on by the fire, or to add fuel: c a large door to be opened, when a crucible is to be set in or taken out of the furnace.
11, A small furnace, in which flowers of sulphur are sublimed in small quantities: a,a, are two receivers: b is an earthen or iron head: c is the vessel which contains the sulphur in the furnace.
12, a plain glass bell for making spirit of sulphur: a is a vessel containing burning sulphur, with a receiver under it.
13, a more commodious apparatus for making spirit of sulphur: a is a large retort with a hole in its bottom, and running into a tubulated receiver, with the spout upwards: e a glass mortar: d a concave glass plate, with a hole in the middle: c a gallipot inverted over the perforation in d. b A crucible containing burning sulphur."

'Third View of Practical Chemistry' 

IN: 'The Universal Magazine' [vol. 8], 1751.

Key to the figures (click picture for larger version):

"A, a furnace for distilling in balneum mariae.
B, a furnace for making spirit of hartshorn, &c. in great quantities, e, its head, and b,b, two receivers.
C, a sand furnace; d a retort placed in it.
D, another sand-furnace, having a copper distilling body placed in it, to which it is fitted (d) a glass head, and (e) a receiver.
E, a small open furnace for divers uses, as boiling syrups, evaporating liquids, &c.
F, a wind-furnace, blown by the bellows, M, f a cucurbit in a copper vessel with sand, placed over the furnace.
G, a sand-heat, with a retort and a receiver.
H, H, two sand-heats, in each of which is placed a retort k, m, for distilling volatile spirits, one of which has a single receiver l, and a double one i, k.
I, a cold still; n and o the receiver.
K, a sand-heat, in which a retort q, having a large receiver p fitted to it for making sal volatile.
L, a digesting furnace, having a circulatory vessel r, s, placed in it for extracting tinctures, &c.
N, O, P, three chimnies, which, after uniting, join the main chimney of the laboratory."

'The Alchemist' by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, 1558
[source or alternative version]

'Facies Interna Laboratorium Academici Traiectini'
(Interior View of a Laboratory at the University of Utrecht)

IN: 'Pyrosophia, Succinte atque Breviter 

Iatro-Chemiam, rem Metallicam et 

Chrysopoeiam Pervestigans' by 

Johann Conrad Barchusen, 1698.

'Laboratoire et Table des Raports'

Artist: Louis-Jacques Goussier Engraver: Benoît Louis Prévost
IN: 'Recueil de Planches, sur les Sciences, les Arts Libéraux, et les Arts Méchaniques', 1772.
{an earlier version appeared in Diderot's 'L'Encyclopédie', 1751-1765}

'L'Alchimiste'

Original painting by David Teniers (before 1690).

This version engraved by Jacques-Louis Pérée, 1769.

'Le Chimiste
De la Galerie de S.A.S. Monseigneur le Duc d'Orléans'

Original painting by David Teniers (before 1690). This version engraved by FB Lorieux sometime in the 1700s. "Alembic and crucible sit on furnace in center of image; miscellaneous apparatus in foreground."

'Tiré du Cabinet de Mr. le Brun'

Original painting by Thomas Wyck. This version engraved 

by Louis-Claude Le Grand sometime in the 1700s.

'Le Docteur Alchimiste'

Original painting by David Teniers (before 1690). 

This version engraved by Jacques Nicolas Tardieu sometime in the 1700s.

"Trade card of Richard Siddall, chemist at the Golden Head in Panton Street, near the Haymarket, London; a scene of an apothecary's laboratory above, with an advertisement lettered on a fringed curtain below; the chemist seated next to a still and upsetting a log-basket; immediately behind him, an elaborate covered stove with various instruments, surmounted by a bust of Galen; to right, a woman with another basket, looking over her left shoulder; hanging from the ceiling and around the walls, various dried and stuffed preparations including a crocodile, an elephant head, a rhinoceros head, a crab, coral, fish and shells; in the background to left, shelves with labelled jars and a clock."

The card, etched/engraved by Robert Clee in about the 1750s "is based on a painting entitled 'La Pharmacie', one of a series by Jacques de Lajoue made for the Duc de Picquigny in 1735 and known in London from a print of 1738 by Charles Nicolas Cochin." [source]

'Le Plaisir des Fous'
(The pleasure of fools)

Original painting by David Teniers (before 1690). This version engraved by Pierre-François Basan sometime in the 1700s. This satirical view of an alchemist shows that not all illustrations were meant to be taken too seriously.

'Raccolta di Diverse Caricature'
(Collection of diverse caricatures)

Print made by Arnold van Westerhout, 1687.

"The Alchemist. Three deformed figures, whole length standing, the middle one wearing glasses and a large hat, heating up liquids in chemical bottles over a stove, the right figure carrying a basket with charcoal." 

"This is one from a series of eleven plates (plus title), first sold from the artist's bottega in Rome near San Ignazio in 1687; later published by Monaldini in 1765. Ten of the plates show three or four caricatural figures each." 

The subject is known as a 'Callot figure' -- "The term refers to a particular type of diminutive human figure which appears in the 18thC in the fine and decorative arts. Although described as Callot figures, they differ substantially from the work of Jacques Callot." [source]

'The Dissolution, or The Alchymist producing an Aetherial Representation'

Hand-coloured etching made by James Gillray, 1796, in reference 

to the dissolution of Parliament announced on 19 May.

"Pitt as an alchemist, but dressed as usual, sits in his laboratory blowing a furnace with bellows formed of a royal crown. The furnace heats a large glass retort in which the House of Commons is being dissolved: the galleries are collapsing, the Speaker's chair is breaking, he and the clerks are asleep, the broken mace drops from the table, the books fly into the air and ascend with documents, &c, into the curving neck of the retort: 'Coke', 'Acts', 'Statutes', 'Rights of Parliament', 'Magna Charta', 'Bill of Rights', a cap of 'Libertas', the scales of Justice are flying upwards. [..]

A stream of vapour issues from the mouth of the retort containing tiny grovelling figures of abject members who fill both sides of another House of Commons above and behind the alchemist's head, and prostrate themselves before a miniature Pitt, who sits on a throne which replaces the Speaker's chair, and is inscribed 'Perpetual Dictator' [..] 

From the roof hang emblems of nefarious wizardry: a crocodile, a headsman's axe, a scorpion, a bull's head, a locust, an asp issuing from an egg, a bat. On the wall are three rows of large jars, some with inscriptions: 'Ointment of Caterpillars', '[Univer]sal Panacea', 'Oil of Influence', 'Extract of British Blood', 'Spirit of Sal: Machiavel.'" {I left a lot out of the description, believe me} [source]

'La Chimie'

Alchemy laboratory, with alembic* at centre, and, at right, four putti* gathered around a crucible; at left, a putto carrying coal in a basket. Engraved by Bernard Picart IN Bernard de Fontenelle's 'Oeuvres Diverses', 1729. [source]

'Doctor Panurgus', engraving by Martin Droeshout ~1620s.

"Satirical broadside on folly: the interior of an apothecary's shop, with the doctor purging with drugs a countryman seated on a close-stool who defecates his animals of various sorts; at the right a fashionable young man with his head in an oven has follies cooked out of him which emerge in a cloud at the top; they include cards, backgammon, tennis, fencing, playing music, extravagant clothes; in the centre a well-dressed man and woman (holding a squirrel on a lead) wait to be treated. 1620s" [commentary source]

The very complex background to this illustration (posted previously) was discussed at the source site for the picture, British Printed Images to 1700, as part of their Print of the Month series.

'Laboratory for metallurgy and the industrial arts'

Original painting by Samuel Wale. This version engraved by Pierre-Charles Canot, 1765. The illustration appeared IN: 'Commercium Philosophico-Technicum' (The Philosophical Commerce of Arts) by William Lewis.

"Eight furnaces in various locations; two balances on windowsill. This laboratory may have been intended for metallurgical work, glassmaking, and other chemical and industrial experiments."

'A Design for a General Laboratory'

Artist: Cornelius Varley; Engraver: AW Warren, 1822.

This illustration formed the frontispiece of the 10th Ed. of 

'The Chemical Catechism' by Samuel Parkes (about: 1860s/1870s).

• Unless otherwise stated, the illustrations above were sourced from the Edgar Fahs Smith Collection at the Schoenberg Center for Electronic Text & Image (SCETI) at the University of Pennsylvania Libraries.
• Adam McLean's sprawling Alchemy website remains the most important internet source for information about this esoteric subject matter.
• Previous posts on alchemy
• See: Twitter, delicious bookmarks and blog links!
• Update: further alchemy lab images - one, two, three, four, five - from the interesting Ars Secreta site (in Spanish - trans.)
• Update: Also see the flickr sets from The Chemical Heritage Foundation (via)
  

Antarctica Botany

Chart of the South Circumpolar Regions
Shewing the Discovery Tracks of Cook, Weddell and Ross

Two books constituting 'The botany of the Antarctic Voyage' by Joseph Dalton Hooker [1847] are available from SICD. Choose the book, then click 'See digitalized document', then click the folder icon top left for thumbnail pages. The illustrations in both books are towards the back. I recall that in one of the volumes they start on page 38 of the thumbnail pages.


(Sir) Joseph Dalton Hooker (1817-1911) came from an eminent family of naturalists and botanists and developed a passion for plants early in life, when, from the age of seven, he attended lectures given by his father on botany at Glasgow University. Travel stories that he heard as a child, particularly those related to the voyages of Captain Cook, would prove equally influential in the trajectory of Dalton's career.

After completing his medical training, Hooker signed on to the position of Assistant Surgeon aboard HMS Erebus. The Erebus and HMS Terror, under the command of renowned polar explorer, Captain James Clark Ross, left Britain in 1839 on a three year expedition - the last major voyage of discovery powered by sail alone - attempting to locate the south magnetic pole.

Further to his medical duties, Hooker's secondary role during the expedition was to collect, draw and catalogue botanical and zoological specimens he encountered both in Antarctica and in the many islands in the southern ocean that served as shelter during the harsh winters.

After returning to Britain, Hooker undertook the laborious job of preparing botanical works for publication that included studies of the plants he had collected during the Ross expedition as well as specimens lodged by by Cook and Darwin at the British Museum.

The 6-volume work that resulted was divided into three sections: 'Flora Antarctica' (from which the above illustration plates were obtained), 1847; 'Flora Novae-Zelandiae', 1853; and 'Flora Tasmaniae', 1859. Incidentally, the illustrator (trained in botanical drawing by Hooker himself) for the series was Walter Hood Fitch, who became one of the most famous Victorian nature artists.

Hooker had a particular interest in plant distribution and his own independent assessment of species variation just happened to coincide with certain observations put forward in Darwin's theory of evolution. It is no surprise that these men sought each other out and their lifelong close friendship began soon after Hooker's return from Antarctica. In an essay opening 'Flora Novae-Zelandiae', Hooker became the first scientist to go on record supporting the (still then) contentious Darwin theory.

Antarctica was just the starting point in Hooker's illustrious career in science. He later undertook expeditions to the Himalayas, Palestine, Morocco and the United States; was appointed Director of Kew Gardens; published outstanding works on Indian and British plants and received numerous awards, including a knighthood and membership of the Royal Society. Hooker is regarded as one of the greatest botanical explorers in the history of science and this brief summary hardly begins to do justice to his contributions.

• Joseph Dalton Hooker at Plant Explorers.
• Australian Biographical Dictionary entry.
• The Joseph Dalton Hooker website (this is a fairly comprehensive and useful fansite).
• Works by Hooker at Botanicus.
• Works by Hooker at the Internet Archive.
• Works by Hooker at Project Gutenberg.
• Wikipedia article.

Rag, Tag and Bobtail

Victoria Park

A Difference of Opinion

A Man and His Little Brother

A Regular Turk

A Restive Team

Fine Feathers

Flying From Justice

Kensington Gardens - Air Balloons

Scrub Night

Strangers

Street Singers

The Jones Swing

The New Bonnet

These charming chromolithographs of children from 1899 by Edith Farmiloe appear in a book called 'Rag, Tag and Bobtail', available from Braunschweig Digital Library (click 'Start.html') I confess to not having read any of the verses by Winifred Parnell in this ~70 page book : temporary bandwidth problem. The images above have all been lightly background cleaned.

There is little online about Farmiloe*, although the paragraphs below (out of sequence) from a contemporary review by Walter Shaw Sparrow in an arts magazine called 'The Studio', are alone worth reading for the authors delicate interplay of patronising attitude (well it was 1899!), attempted deference and subdued incredulity at the wily ways of feminine illustration ability.
*Known but unavailable from Amazon; appears in a few ebay auctions; otherwise pops up in a few antiquarian bookstore listings.

'The Studio' is one of a couple of old art magazines available from Design Research Publications. The excerpted article below - 'Some Drawings by Mrs Farmiloe' : Walter Shaw Sparrow - is from Issue 81: December 1899.

In passing, I came across this work that seems pretty good: 'The Victorian Illustrated Book' Ed. by Richard Maxwell, 2002. [googlebooks]

"Mrs. Farmiloe is the second daughter of Colonel the Hon. Arthur Parnell, a retired officer of the Royal Engineers and a second cousin of the late Irish leader, Charles Stewart Parnell. She has four sisters and four brothers, and a talent for humorous drawing runs in the family. Her husband, the Rev. William D. Farmiloe, is Vicar of St. Peter's in Soho. The parish, lying chiefly between Rupert Street and Great Windmill Street, is thronged with children of all nationalities, and Mrs. Farmiloe never tires of watching the youngsters play when school is over, Something of what may be seen there is admirably represented in the artist's new book, "Tag, Rag, and Bobtail" (London: Grant Richards). Herein the drawings are reproduced in colour, and one finds everywhere plenty of sweet ingenuousness with plenty of gay and charming movement and humour. It is a book to be treasured, like its predecessors of last year–a work entitled "All the World Over." [..]


One other point is worth noting in connection with the difficulty that Mrs. Farmiloe experiences in handling details. She tells me that she cannot sketch well from nature, as she is bewildered by the great number of lines which have to be drawn one by one; but when she turns away from the object and sets herself clearly to visualise it, to see it clearly with her mind's eye, the feeling of bewilderment leaves her, and the model's chief lines are soon upon paper. This skill in drawing from memory is often very helpful to Mrs. Farmiloe, for children never know when they are being " took," and consequently never pose and look unnatural. She can take part in their amusements and yet be their graphic historian. On the other hand, it is also a dangerous way of working, since it is apt to give rise to stereotyped conventions, to endless repetitions, so that this tendency ought to be counteracted by patient studies from the life, The drawings thus made may be bad, yet they store the mind with new and varied material, which is certain to find its way into the next memory-sketches.

And I say this because a few children in Mrs. Farmiloe's art have a family likeness, a set type of face and figure. We must remember, nevertheless, that in writing about a lady of genius a man may easily give bad advice. "Women," said Goethe; "do the most through imagination and temperament." Their best work has ever been done intuitively, under an instinctive rather than technical guidance. They have eyes to see and hearts to understand a great many subtle things unperceived by men; hence we are often seriously at fault when we try to influence their ways of working. This is what Mr. Ruskin found out in the case of Lady Waterford, the greatest woman-artist of the century, who was rendered timidly self-conscious by a course of systematic instruction. Nature was her best guide, as Mr. Ruskin soon acknowledged.

In brief, academic studies do much for men, but it is doubtful if they are ever very useful to women of first-rate ability; and thus I may be altogether wrong in my remarks on the benefits that Mrs. Farmiloe would receive from studying from the life. This is a point which she alone can decide, guided by her intuitions."