Circle, Square, Triangle, Circle
Michael Maier (author); engraved by Matthäus Merian the Elder
No print size passed the check for this piece: at 16 x 16 in, 35 dpi; a historical scan is never enlarged. We would rather show it than sell a soft print.
See pieces like it you can buyThe plate shows the tools of geometric construction — compass, straightedge, a sequence of drawn figures — converting a circle into a square, the square into a triangle, and the triangle back into a circle. Its motto promises that whoever "makes of the male and female a circle, thence a square, thence a triangle, and a circle again" will possess the Philosophers’ Stone. Maier was drawing on the ancient problem of squaring the circle — constructing a square equal in area to a circle using only compass and straightedge — and mapping it onto the alchemical marriage of opposites, treating an unsolved geometric puzzle as a working metaphor for an unsolved chemical one. The image nonetheless keeps the geometry front and center: a robed adept traces the figures directly against a bare brick wall, the nested circle, triangle, and square rendered as literal, measurable shapes rather than as background ornament — a reminder that Maier’s alchemy leaned as heavily on number and proportion as on furnace and flask.
- Maker
- Michael Maier (author); engraved by Matthäus Merian the Elder
- Medium of the original
- Engraving
- Original held by
- Wikimedia Commons
- Credit
- Wikimedia Commons · via Wikimedia Commons
- Rights
- Public domain, verified
- Catalogue number
- PA-00511
Before a size goes on sale, the file is measured against it: pixels per inch at that size, how much of the picture a crop would lose, tone and sharpness. A size that fails is not offered, so there is nothing to choose wrong.
| Size | Why |
|---|---|
| 16 x 16 in | 35 dpi; a historical scan is never enlarged |
| 20 x 20 in | 28 dpi; a historical scan is never enlarged |
| 30 x 30 in | 18 dpi; a historical scan is never enlarged |
- Scanned
- 2026-10-07
- Master file
- 594 x 568 px, b-w
- Tone
- Darks 1, lights 254 of 255; 5.3% clipped light, 5% clipped dark
- Colour
- 0% vivid
- Sharpness
- 1066.89
- Notes
- Pure white on 5% of the image, mostly the sheet itself: it prints as the paper's white
- Shadows clip on 5% of the image: the darkest areas print as solid black
The Alembic
Gold, the sun and the alchemist’s Great Work in eight surviving miniatures.
All 29 pieces from The Alembic
