‘Femme d’Apoticaire. / Eine Apoteckerin’, c1700

Description

Framed and mounted hand coloured engraving and etching, German, entitled ‘Femme d’Apoticaire. / Eine Apoteckerin.’, designed and engraved by anon, and published by Martin Engelbrecht in Augsburg, Germany, circa 1700.

This is a restrained example of a more typically 1600s artistic conceit, that of evoking the image of a trade in human form. The female apothecary is partly composed of items of everyday use in an apothecary’s shop. The lady’s torso is formed of a brass mortar, with other equipment and plants attached.

Medicine bottles and drug jars are strung around her shoulders and medicinal plants and herbs are figured in the scene. At her feet is a skull, a reminder of death. Lettered below in French: “1. un chapeau orne de fleurs. 2. boetes. 3. boetes. 4. verres. 5. petit mortier. 6. pilou. 7. une phiole. 8. toutes fortes de Simples. 9. une bouteille. 10. une poele. 11. un fourneau de fer. 12. une tete de mort.”