‘Un Apoticaire. / Ein Apotecker’, c1700

Description

Framed and mounted hand coloured engraving and etching, entitled ‘Un Apoticaire. / Ein Apotecker’, 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 apothecary is partly formed from items of everyday use in an apothecary’s shop; drug jars, spatulas, a syringe, leech jars, and glass medicine bottles. His torso is composed of a furnace.

On the arms are jars containing vipers (valued for their invigorating properties). He wears a leather work apron and is set in a landscape of medicinal plants, including a large aloe plant. On the ground before him is a large brass mortar and pestle.

Lettered below in French reads: “1. Vase pour la Conserve de l’opiat. 2. toutes fortes de boettes a medicines. 3. verres a medicine. 4. Lesars, viperes, serpens. 5. Patule. 6. Cirinque. 7. Cruche. 8. goblet d’or a prende medecine. 9. recepte. 10