The Knight of the Double Fountain

An armoured knight stands between two fountains, one flowing red and one white — the twin streams whose union alchemists took as the heart of the work, sol and luna, the red and the white made one. Splendor Solis stages the meeting as a courtly tableau, the figure poised in a manicured Renaissance garden about 1582. Red and white run through the whole tradition: the two tinctures, the two lights, the marriage the Great Work was always driving toward. The plate hands you the doctrine as a single legible picture — two waters, one ground — and wraps it, as ever, in a border of painted flowers.

Maker

attributed to Salomon Trismosin

Date

c. 1582

Medium of the original

Plate

Original held by

British Library, Harley MS 3469 · scan: Wikimedia Commons

Credit

British Library, Harley MS 3469 · scan: Wikimedia Commons

Rights

Public domain, verified

Catalogue number

PA-00453