<i>The Chymist</i>
date: label: date made
content: ca 1750
notes: label: Description
content: This engraving depicts a humble chemist (or alchemist) sitting before a stove, operating a bellows to stoke the fire under an alembic. Another man, at a table at the back of the room, grinds something in a mortar and pestle. The text reads “D. Teniers Pinxt” and “T. Major sculpt” and “To Richard Mead, M.D. Physician in Ordinary to his Majesty F.R.S. / This Print Ingrav’d from an Original Paining of the same Size by David Teniers, / is humbly Dedicated by his most Obedient Servant Thos Major.” It also reads “Published May 7th, 1750. accord. To Act of Parliamt” and “London sold by the Author at the Golden Head in West Street the upper end of St. Martin’s Lane” and “No. 17.”
label: Description
content: David Teniers the younger (1610-1690) was a genre painter in Antwerp. Perhaps influenced by his wife’s grandfather, Peter Brueghel, the elder, Teniers produced numerous alchemist scenes.
label: Description
content: Thomas Major (1720-1799) studied engraving in Paris. He returned to London in 1749 and in 1753 was named engraver to George, the young Prince of Wales who became George III in 1760. The British Museum has a manuscript “Catalogue of Prints Engraved from the Finest Paintings of the Most Eminent Masters in the Collection of H.R.H. the Prince of Wales . . . The whole Collection are Printed on Grand Eagle paper; to be had either in Sheets or Bound fit for a Gentleman’s Libraries. London. Sold by T. Major, Engraver to His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales . . . 1754.” This includes 26 prints after paintings by Teniers; No. 17 is “The Chymist,” which sold for 0.2.6.
label: Description
content: Ref: Lawrence Principe and Lloyd DeWitt, eds., <i>Transmutations. Alchemy in Art</i> (Philadelphia, 2012).
label: Description
content: Jacob Wamberg, ed., <i>Art and Alchemy</i> (Copenhagen, 2006).
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United Kingdom: England, London
topic: label: Subject
content: Chemistry
setName: label: See more items in
content: Medicine and Science: Physical Sciences
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content: Science & Mathematics
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content: Prints from the Physical Sciences Collection
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: PH.329880
label: catalog number
content: 329880
label: accession number
content: 286523
objectType: label: Object Name
content: print
physicalDescription: label: Measurements
content: overall in mat: 21 3/16 in x 16 in x 1/8 in; 53.81625 cm x 40.64 cm x .3175 cm