The Alchemist

Thomas Wijck painted alchemists at least 40 times, a large share of the roughly 120 pictures known by him, and he started on the subject in the mid-1640s. Much Dutch painting of the period made the alchemist a figure of fun, a fool burning his money in the hope of gold. Elisabeth Berry Drago, in a 2019 book on these pictures, argues that Wijck painted his as serious, respectable men at work among basins, stills, powders and books.

He signed this panel at the bottom centre, with the T and W joined. It went through two Brussels auctions, in 1852 and in 1882, and at the second the museum bought it for 1,108 guilders and 80 cents. It belongs to the Mauritshuis and hangs in the Gallery Prince Willem V on the Buitenhof.