Group Portrait in the Chemist’s House, Cornelis de Man (Delft 1621 – Delft 1706), Second half of 17th century, National Museum in Warsaw

The most of De Man’s group portraits represent an elegant genre-type family portrait which developed in Holland around 1650 and was increasingly popular then. The laboratory interior shown in the background can be easily compared, for instance, with Johannes C. Barchusen’s laboratory at Utrecht University.

Cornelis de Man came probably from an affluent family, in 1642 he joined the painters’ guild in Delft. From 1655 to 1661 he mainly painted portraits; his earliest genre scenes and depictions of church interiors date from about 1660.

In an Alchemist’s Room, attributed to Pieter Symonsz Potter (Enkhuizen ok. 1597–1600 - Enkhuizen 1652), second quarter of 17th century, Wawel Royal Castle

The picture shows an alchemist’s room in which an alchemist clad in tatters, wholly engrossed in his work, is leaning over an open book. The oven is inscribed with symbols of the elements indicating the metals which played the essential role in alchemists’ investigations. The composition refers to paintings by David Teniers the Younger (1608–1680), who popularized this theme in Flemish painting, and especially to his Alchemist in Brunswick (Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum). A picture with the figure of an old man in tattered clothes, bent over an open book, similarly posed and only slightly differing from the man in the Wawel piece, is kept at the Kulturgeschichtliches Museum at Osnabrück and is believed to be the work of an 18th century imitator of Teniers.

Pieter Symonsz Potter – painter, draughtsman, etcher, and businessman. In 1631 he moved to Amsterdam and in 1647 became a member of the painters’ guild in The Hague. The subjects of his works are numerous and varied.

Dr Szymon Schultz, unknown Toruń painter, 1669, Unsigned, at top centre a cartouche with the inscription: S. SM. D PHYS. THOR. ORO/NATö Aö 622. 26 octob y THORUN/DSPCT A. 1669. MENSE IULIO., Regional Museum in Toruń.

The painting is a modest imitation of “the portrait of a scholar”, the accessories  indicate his profession.

Szymon Schultz was born on 26th October, 1622 in Toruń. He studied, at the university in Leiden (Holland), where he obtained a degree of doctor of philosophy and medicine. In 1651 he took office as a town physician. He had the reputation of an excellent medical practitioner. At the same time he conducted medical research. The portrait was most probably commissioned by the scholar himself and  seems to indicate that it may later have functioned as a coffin or epitaph portrait.

Still Life with a Skull, Simon Luttichuys (Londyn 1610 – Amsterdam 1661) ca. 1635–1640, National Museum in Gdańsk.

The painting represents the so-called learned still lifes in the Leiden tradition, usually showing tables scattered with writing materials, books, old documents, globes, and literary texts – symbols of knowledge and at the same time of its transience. Such objects were present not only in scholars’ studies but also in artists’ studios.

The main subject of Simon Luttichuys’s paintings was still lifes and his compositions were usually based on a diagonal. The pictures often expressed the vanitas idea. He also painted portraits, including those of Charles II of England and his family.

Vanitas (“Homo Bulla” and Apothecaries’ Accessories), Dutch painter, 1660, signed: T (?)ERDAMI = MFP(?); an inscription and date at bottom right: AETATIS SUE / MR…SES. 14 / Ano 1660, National Museum in Warsaw.

A child (here almost naked) holding in his hands a straw and a soap bubble in a bowl, is characteristic of the moralizing, vanitas current in the Dutch art of the end of the 16th and of the 17th century. He embodies the idea of a homo bulla (man – a soap bubble), a conviction that human life is frail and transitory. Around typical contemporary shapes of the vessels used by alchemists and later in apothecaries’ rooms and in early modern chemical laboratories.

The Alchemist Sędziwój and King Sigismund III, Jan Matejko (Cracow 1838 – Cracow 1893), 1867, Signed at bottom right: J.M 1867, Art Museum in Łódź.

The main figure in the picture is Sędziwój (1566–1636), an alchemist, philosopher, physician and diplomat, who completed his studies at the Cracow Academy. He won international renown as the author of an alchemical treatise, De lapide philosophorum, of 1604. Sędziwój is performing the transmutation of a silver coin into a gold one in the presence of King Sigismund III accompanied by his retinue.

Jan Matejko – painter and teacher, the moste oustanding exponent of polish historical paintig, professor at the Cracow School of fine Arts, its reformer and director.

Alembic head, late 19th century, Jagiellonian University Museum

 In laboratory practice, an alembic head was put over a container with which it formed the simplest distilling set, called alembic. The alembic is the oldest form of a distillation vessel, which has been known and used for over two thousand years.

Sphaerical receivers with a side tubulure, 19th century, Jagiellonian University Museum

Receivers are typical vessels for carrying out chemical reactions. The perpendicular position of the tubulures facilitated the setting of such vessels together and their interconnection. The tubulures were not ground at that time. The tubulures were not ground at that time. The tightness of the sets was ensured by the employment of the so-called lutes whose composition depended on the character of reagents.

Sphaerical receiver with a side tubulure 20th., Jagiellonian University Museum

Chemical retorts with a tubulure, Late 19th century nad 20th century, Signed: R, Jagiellonian University Museum

The shape of a retort, similarly as that of an alembic, is one of the oldest forms of alchemic vessels. Retorts were used for carrying out reactions at high temperatures and were usually placed in furnaces. There were simple retorts and those provided with a tubulure which facilitated the filling of the vessel. They were used in laboratories until as late as the first half of the 20th century.

Apothecary mortar, Andrzej Ebeling, Gdańsk,1646, signed: AE ANNO DOMINI 1646, Jagiellonian University Museum

Mortar with a pestle, 18th/19th centuries, Jagiellonian University Museum.

Open double-beaked pelican, 17th–18th centuries, Jagiellonian University Museum, Given to Tadeusz Estreicher with the information that it came from a Cracow pharmacy.

This circulation vessel, with two beaks, was used for prolonged heating of reagents, for dissolution of solids, and “digesting” at moderately high temperatures. Pelicans were set together with Woulfe flasks or employed separately, in the latter case being closed.

The shape of the vessel permitted the circulation of vapour with its simultaneous partial condensation and recirculation. This is probably the only extant example of such a form of vessel in the world.

Graphite  bottle, late 18th century,Jagiellonian University Museum

A thick-walled vessel with a flat bottom is surmounted by a neck, tapering upwards and bent to one side, typical of a retort form. It was used for dry decomposition of solid materials. The end of the neck is broken off.

Woulfe three-necked  and two-necked flask, 19th century,Jagiellonian University Museum

Such flasks had been known before they came to be associated with the name of the British physicist Peter Woulfe (1727–1803), who described these vessels in 1766. Woulfe used them for absorption, gas purification and chemical reactions with gases; he obtained, among other compounds, ethyl chloride and picric acid. They are used in laboratories to this day.

Analitical balance, England, mid-19th century, Jagiellonian University Museum.

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