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Alchemy and Art

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  1. For more detailed accounts of alchemy, see the writer's article, “Alchemy and Alchemists”, Nature, 168, p. 759, November 3, 1951; also “The Alchemist in Life, Literature and Art” (London and Edinburgh, 1947), and “Humour and Humanism in Chemistry” (London, 1947).

  2. Plate 34 in the writer's “Prelude to Chemistry” (London, 1936; 2nd edit, 1939; New York, 1937; now out of print).

  3. ibid., compare plate 15.

  4. ibid., frontispiece.

  5. See Figs. 8 and 9 in “Humour and Humanism in Chemistry”, and Fig. 7 in “Prelude to Chemistry”.

  6. See plate 8 in “The Alchemist in Life, Literature and Art

  7. See Fig. 6 in “Prelude to Chemistry”.

  8. ibid., plate 9.

  9. ibid., plate 44.

  10. ibid., plate 48.

  11. See plate 6 in “The Alchemist in Life, Literature and Art

  12. For this part of the Discourse the writer has drawn upon the article by his son, Mr. J. H.(Jan) Head, “Some Alchemical Engravings”, in The Burlington Magazine, 85, 239 (1944/).

  13. See plate 19 in “Prelude to Chemistry”.

  14. ibid., plate 50.

  15. See plate 14 in “The Alchemist in Life, Literature and Art”.

  16. ibid., plate 22.

  17. Reproductions of representative engravings and paintings of alchemists and alchemical interiors, notably by artists of the Low Countries, were shown in the Discourse; most of these may be found in “The Alchemist in Life, Literature and Art”.

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READ, J. Alchemy and Art. Nature 169, 479–481 (1952). https://doi.org/10.1038/169479a0

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