This "Rosicrucian" woodcut portrait of the Swiss-German physician and alchemist Aureolus Philippus Theophrastus—better known as Paracelsus—appeared as the frontispiece to a posthumous 1567 edition of his works titled Ph…

A Chine-collé portrait of English naturalist Charles Darwin (1809–1882) sitting in a wicker chair near a hanging tapestry.

Black metal (iron) U-shaped base with cylindrical brass (plated) parts; two metal slide clips mounted to slide plate; rotatable eye piece lowered or raised by the adjustment of top right knob; circular mirror underneath…

An oval bust-length portrait of D. Alexander Nicolaus Scherer.

In this fanciful scene of an alchemist's workroom, a bespectacled alchemist leans over to examine the contents of a bubble-like glass receiver. At left, an enormous alembic sits distilling over a furnace, extending a…

In this lively print after a painting by Gerrit Dou, we see a dentist in a fur cap, proudly displaying the tooth he has just pulled from his patient. The patient, a young boy, grimaces in pain, holding onto his…

This workshop scene highlights the many activities of an apothecary's assistants as they sort and process herbs and plants, distill organic substances for medicine, and prepare doses. Large racks of glass distillation…

The walls of this busy and productive apothecary's shop are lined with glass vessels and earthenware jars used for the preparation and storage of drugs, tonics and purgatives. The apothecary sits at his desk, conversing…

An oval bust-length portrait of Eilhard Mitscherlich (1794–1863) facing right. He was a German chemist known for his law of isomorphism.

This etching, after a print by Balthasar Moncornet, in turn after a drawing by Rembrandt, claims to display a portrait of the French manuscript seller Nicolas Flamel (1330-1418). Flamel, along with his wife Perenelle,…

Seated at a table, a well-dressed medical alchemist examines a flask he holds aloft. Opposite, a young man and woman anxiously await his diagnosis. Urinoscopy, or the visual examination of urine for diagnosis, was a…

This print, after a painting by Martin Schmidt, captures the moment when an alchemist lowers a live scorpion into a steaming crucible. Billowing smoke from the fire rises around him as he performs this portion of the…

An oval bust-length portrait of Francis Lord Bacon (1561–1626), the English philosopher, lawyer, statesman, author, and scientist. Beneath is a rectangular image of a man seated on the left and standing figures on the…

An oval bust-length portrait of the German chemist, physicist, and biologist Franz Karl Achard (1753–1821).

This depiction of 8th-century Arabic polymath Abu Mūsā Jābir ibn Hayyān, westernized by Europeans as "Geber," comes from chapter 33 of the publication Les vrais pourtraits et vies des hommes illustres grecz, latins et…

A half-length seated portrait of the 17th-century doctor Gerardus Blasius pointing to an anatomy figure in a book.

This depiction of German polymath, physician, legal scholar, soldier, theologian, and occult writer Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim (1486–1535) comes from chapter 107 of the publication Les vrais pourtraits et…

The scene, from an episode in Samuel Butler's mock-heroic epic, "Hudibras," shows the title character as he confronts the astrologer Sidrophel in a clandestine laboratory. Angry at the truths of his past which the…

A scene from the two-sided folio from Hartmann Schedel's The Book of Chronicles, or in German Das Buch der Chroniken (1493), depicting God creating Adam from clay. This clay is interpreted alchemically as the "prima…

A two-sided folio from Hartmann Schedel's The Book of Chronicles, or in German Das Buch der Chroniken (1493). On the recto is a text block on top and an image below depicting God creating Adam from clay. This clay is…

This portrait of the famed alchemist John Dee (1527-1609) shows a bearded, elderly man attired in the fashion of the Elizabethan court, complete with a sober scholar's cap and a starched collar ruff. It closely…

A bust-length portrait facing left in profile of Professor Joseph Black (1728–1799) in an octagonal format.

A framed portrait of Joseph Black (1728–1799), professor of chemistry at University of Glasgow, seated and holding a document.

An alchemist in scholar's clothes sits in contemplation at his desk, bent over an open text with quill in hand. His workroom is cluttered with texts and earthenware vessels, a large globe, trunks and barrels. At right,…