An alchemist hunched over his crucible; an assistant reads him a recipe, watched by an onlooker; the alchemist's wife weeps in the dim background, a baby clasped to her breast. Engraving by J. Boydell, c. 1760, after J. Steen.

After a painting by Steen known as 'The Village alchemist', but with the removal of the weeping wife in the background. Above are suspended herbs, a cucurbite and drying laundry. The alchemist has typical 'bleary eyes' from long sustained efforts of watching his experiment, as described by Thomas Norton in his 'Ordinall of alchemy', 1477