Public domain
De alchemist
From the collection of Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. Free to download, adapt and use — no permission needed.
About this work
In a shabby workshop an alchemist is at work. He is so obsessed with the idea of winning gold from metal and thus becoming rich, that he does not notice that his wife and children go in rags and suffer from hunger. They turn away from him and are, in the background, taken into the almshouse. As the motto of the print says: One flees poverty, the other seeks it.
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam’s own descriptionSubjects
Credit lineDe alchemist. 1596. Johann Theodor de Bry. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. Public domain.
