The Woman at the Furnace

The engraving places a woman over a fireplace, working vessels set to heat, in a scene that could pass for an ordinary seventeenth-century kitchen. The motto reframes it: "Plumbo habito candido fac opus mulierum, hoc est, Coque" — having obtained white lead, do the work of women, that is, cook. The discourse that follows draws the parallel explicitly, comparing the alchemist’s handling of matter in a sealed vessel to a woman softening and stewing food over controlled heat. Assigning this stage to female domestic labor was a common device in the literature, casting a patient, moderate kind of heat-work — neither the violent fire of smelting nor an instant transformation — as the model to imitate. The homely fireplace at the emblem’s center is a useful corrective to the idea that alchemical imagery was all robed philosophers and dragons; much of it was borrowed straight from the household.

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-00512