The Ninth Key

Two nude figures, hair streaming as if windblown, lean outward in a mirrored balancing pose, feet together atop a bristling, spiked orb, one reaching toward a dove-like bird, the other toward a crested one. Below them, a circular medallion shows three serpents intertwined around three heart shapes, each biting the tail of the next. Readers took the paired figures as the volatile principles of the Work reaching a precarious equilibrium, poised above raw matter still too "prickly" to be workable, while the triple ouroboros below stood for repeated cycles of dissolution and recombination the material had to undergo before completion. The spiked ball itself is worth a second look, a visual match to period alchemical verse describing the prima materia as a hedgehog needing to be softened. Its density of layered symbols made this key one of the most heavily glossed by later commentators trying to reconstruct Valentine’s actual chemical steps.

Maker

Matthaeus Merian the Elder, engraver (text attributed to Basilius Valentinus)

Date

Late 17th century; text tradition traced to ca. 1599

Medium of the original

Engraving

Original held by

Science History Institute, Philadelphia

Credit

Science History Institute, Philadelphia · via Wikimedia Commons

Rights

Public domain, verified

Catalogue number

PA-00528