The Alchemical Laboratory in the Fine Arts

We cordially invite  you to the the exhibition The Alchemical Laboratory in the Fine Arts in Window Gallery (Husova 4, Praha 1) from 16 September 2021 till 6 February 2022.

The opening of the exhibition will take place on Wednesday 15 September at 5 pm in the courtyard of the Institute of Art History of the CAS (entrance from Na Perštýně Street).

The exhibition in the Window Gallery, the windows of the library of the Institute of Art History of the CAS, is freely accessible from Na Perštýně and Husova Streets.

During the first half of the 17th century, the depiction of the alchemist in the laboratory became one of the common themes in Dutch and Flemish genre painting. Some of these depictions were satirical, while others showed the alchemist with some seriousness. It is important to compare various examples of these portrayals in fine art and scholarly works dealing with alchemy or metallurgy. In the case of depictions in scholarly works, the art is a means of representing a subject of laboratory equipment, in the case of works of genre painting, the topic of laboratory equipment is a means of creating a picturesque work of art.