The alchemist sits, stirring the contents of a crucible, as he carefully watches the progress of a distillation experiment. He is surrounded by alchemical apparatus, glassware, and open books. An hourglass at his side…

An etching by Felix Jasiński after the painting by P.S. Krøyer for the Gazette des Beaux-Arts, a French art review. The etching depicts members of the committee that organized the French Art Exhibition in Copenhagen in…

This photogravure by Gebbie & Husson Co. Ltd. reproduces Thomas Eakins' painting known as The Agnew Clinic (or The Clinic of Dr. Agnew). Eakins was commissioned by the University of Pennsylvania Medical Class of 1889 to…

This photogravure reproduces a painting by American artist Daniel Ridgway Knight (1839-1924), who was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and also spent time in France. The photogravure was part of a massive study of…

Portrait of Sir James Simpson, used as the prototype for a published illustration in the January 1894 issue of The Century Magazine, in an article about the invention of chloroform. Simpson was the first to demonstrate…

A chromolithograph print of Dr. Thomas Stevenson (1838-1908), an English toxicologist and forensic chemist, by A.G. Witherby for Vanity Fair, November 30, 1899.

Color reproduction of a painting by Wijck from the collections of the Rijksmuseum. The alchemist, seated at his desk before the window, looks down to survey the progress of his assistant. The young boy holds up a basin…

A chromolithograph published in Vanity Fair of Marie and Pierre Curie and their apparatus for isolating radium chloride.

An alchemist wearing a green robe uses a pair of bellows to control the heat of the fire beneath his crucible. Other vessels sit on the furnace at his side, and to his left a large still-head for distillation rests over…

When Chester Fisher commissioned this copy of a painting by David Ryckaert III (1612-1661), in the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, Brussels, it was long assumed that the painting depicted the famous Nicolas…

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

An engraving of Swiss physician and alchemist Paracelsus (born Theophrastus von Hohenheim) wearing a small medal around his neck.

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,…

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

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

A half-length seated portrait of Martin Folkes (1690–1754), English mathematician and president of the Royal Society.

A half-length seated portrait of Joseph Priestley (1733–1804), an English clergyman and natural philosopher who discovered oxygen.

A mid-length portrait of Robert Hare, MD.

This print, after a painting by Adriaen van Ostade, shows a humble peasant-alchemist at work before a furnace. Working with a pair of hand bellows—the source of the alchemists' mocking nickname, "puffer,"— the alchemist…

Mezzotint of a portrait bust of the Irish chemist Robert Boyle (1627–1691) in an arched niche.

A three-quarter-length portrait of Thomas Graham (1805–1869), the Scottish chemist who worked on the diffusion of gases.

A half-length portrait of French scientist Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac (1778–1850).