Trouble Comes to the Alchemist
Dutch School, 17th-century
Although the title suggests this is an image of an alchemist, the scene is one of a physician conducting a uroscopy for a female patient. Similar objects are used in both practices, such as a mortar and pestle, a variety of flasks and containers, a human skull, an hourglass, a celestial globe, and books. The alchemist sits at a table, holding a uroscopy flask with fluid in it; he is looking upward, with one hand upraised. An old woman is deliberately emptying her piss pot on the physician's head. To the right of the man stands a woman in a red dress, his patient. Under the table a dog is curled up. The cello in the painting was traditionally a symbol of love and may be a warning about sexual promiscuity. The poem on the table, attributed to Socrates, implies that the furious woman above is like Xanthippe, the Greek philosopher's famously shrewish wife. It reads:
ick wi[s]t wel vrou
ten is geen wonder
het reghenen [s]ou
naer dit gedonder
I knew well woman, it's no wonder, it would rain, after this thunder.
Formerly attributed to
Pieter van Slingelandt.
Remnants of two different signatures in the bottom right corner:
1. The darker, most visible of the two reads "P. Sl……" It is aged and abraded. The right half is missing. The placement of the signature is strange as it is too far to the right for the entire name to fit.
2. There is a very abraded, older signature, only visible under the stereomicroscope. It starts with a "P" but the rest of the lettering is illegible.
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{{Artwork |artist = {{unknown}} |author = |title = ''Trouble Comes to the Alchemist'' |description = ''Trouble Comes to the Alchemist'' Dutch School, 17th-century Oil on canvas mounted on board Although the title suggests this is an image of an...
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