The Three-Headed Dragon of the Sun

Name: The Three-Headed Dragon of the Sun
Brand: The Alembic
SKU: PA-00505

Unknown illuminator (text attributed to Salomon Trismosin), 1582 copy

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No print size passed the check for this piece: at 8 x 10 in, Wrong shape: a 16% crop. We would rather show it than sell a soft print.

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A dragon with three heads, one white, one black, one red, rages inside a sealed glass vessel. Below it, a heavenly chariot is shown mid-transformation, its silver body turning to gold, driven by a crowned king who bears the sign of Leo. This plate belongs to the same planetary sequence as the bird and peacock vessels, and sits at the Sun stage, gold, the metal the whole Work aims at. The three dragon heads compress alchemy’s entire color theory into one beast: black for nigredo, the initial breakdown of matter; white for albedo, purification; red for rubedo, the completed Stone. Later alchemical writers singled out this image specifically as one of the clearest single-picture statements of that three-stage color sequence anywhere in the literature. The detail worth noting is the king’s Leo sign, tying the solar zodiac sign to the planetary Sun stage in the same emblem.

Maker: Unknown illuminator (text attributed to Salomon Trismosin)
Date: 1582 copy
Medium of the original: Plate
Original held by: British Library
Credit: British Library · via Wikimedia Commons
Rights: Public domain, verified
Catalogue number: PA-00505

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
8 x 10 in	Wrong shape: a 16% crop
8 x 12 in	130 dpi; a historical scan is never enlarged
11 x 14 in	Wrong shape: a 15% crop
12 x 16 in	Wrong shape: a 11% crop
12 x 18 in	86 dpi; a historical scan is never enlarged
16 x 20 in	Wrong shape: a 16% crop
16 x 24 in	65 dpi; a historical scan is never enlarged
18 x 24 in	Wrong shape: a 11% crop
20 x 30 in	52 dpi; a historical scan is never enlarged
24 x 30 in	Wrong shape: a 16% crop
24 x 36 in	43 dpi; a historical scan is never enlarged
30 x 40 in	Wrong shape: a 11% crop
36 x 48 in	Wrong shape: a 11% crop
40 x 60 in	26 dpi; a historical scan is never enlarged

Scanned

2026-10-07

Master file

1,044 x 1,561 px, srgb, Adobe RGB (1998)

Tone

Darks 35, lights 191 of 255; 0% clipped light, 0% clipped dark

Colour

0% vivid

Sharpness

6.87

Notes

Colour profile Adobe RGB (1998), converted to sRGB for the screen and the print
Neutrals lean warm (yellow): the paper and varnish of the original, kept as scanned

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