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The Oratory and the Laboratory

Name: The Oratory and the Laboratory
Brand: The Hermetica
SKU: PA-00480

Heinrich Khunrath, 1595

The HermeticaPA-00480Tear sheet

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No print size passed the check for this piece: at 16 x 16 in, 109 dpi; a historical scan is never enlarged. We would rather show it than sell a soft print.

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An alchemist kneels at a draped oratory on one side of the hall and a laboratory bench stands on the other, the whole inscribed with the motto that made the plate famous: on the left, 'pray'; on the right, 'work.' This is the great engraving from Heinrich Khunrath's Amphitheatrum Sapientiae Aeternae, the 'Amphitheatre of Eternal Wisdom,' first issued in 1595. It fused devotion and chemistry into a single room, arguing that the Work was as much prayer as furnace. Dense with Hebrew, music, and instruments, it is one of the most elaborate images the tradition produced — a whole philosophy staged as an architectural interior you could walk into.

Maker: Heinrich Khunrath
Date: 1595
Medium of the original: Plate
Original held by: Amphitheatrum Sapientiae Aeternae, 1595 · scan: Wikimedia Commons
Credit: Amphitheatrum Sapientiae Aeternae, 1595 · scan: Wikimedia Commons
Rights: Public domain, verified
Catalogue number: PA-00480

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.

How the print check works

Sizes withheld
Size	Why
16 x 16 in	109 dpi; a historical scan is never enlarged
20 x 20 in	87 dpi; a historical scan is never enlarged
30 x 30 in	58 dpi; a historical scan is never enlarged

Scanned

2026-10-07

Master file

1,750 x 1,782 px, srgb

Tone

Darks 24, lights 255 of 255; 21.3% clipped light, 0.2% clipped dark

Colour

0% vivid

Sharpness

329.72

Notes