The Alchemist

In 1558 Pieter Bruegel the Elder designed a print of an alchemist at work while his household falls apart around him. His wife shakes an empty purse, the children search a bare cupboard, and in the background the whole family is led off to the poorhouse. Almost a century later the subject still sold in Flanders, and Teniers, who had married Bruegel's granddaughter, painted it again and again. Here there is no family in sight, only the man and his equipment. He stirs something in a bowl with a book open in his other hand, and the room around him is crowded with odd kettles, small furnaces and glassware. Viewers at the time knew the joke. An alchemist was the man who poured his money into trying to make gold and ended up a beggar. This small panel later belonged to the princes of Orange and was shown at their palace of Het Loo.