Offered by Galerie FC Paris
REQUEST INFORMATION
Flanders, 17th century
Oil on canvas
In its original frame of blackened wood, ebony style, with reversed profile and guilloché motif
Overall dimensions with frame: 82 × 98 cm. Canvas alone: 55 × 80 cm
This painting is an emblematic work of Flemish genre painting of the 17th century, illustrating with meticulous detail and richness the intellectual and artisanal universe of alchemy.
Gérard Thomas, born and deceased in Antwerp, was a Flemish painter specializing in interior scenes, notably collectors’ cabinets, artists’ studios, and alchemists’ laboratories. He followed in the tradition of David Teniers the Younger, who popularized this type of subject from the mid 17th century onward.
Such representations were highly prized among bourgeois and scholarly circles, as they reflected both scientific curiosity, the quest for knowledge, and sometimes a subtle critique of human vanity.
The alchemist’s cabinet is a hybrid space—part laboratory, part library, part workshop—where science, mysticism, and craftsmanship intertwine.
The scene unfolds in a lively interior, where several figures are absorbed in intellectual or experimental activities. The space is dense, almost theatrical, with lateral light accentuating volumes and textures, and a vast red orange drapery finished with a tassel in passementerie.
• On the left, an elderly man in a robe examines a substance in a vessel—probably the principal alchemist.
• Two young assistants observe him, embodying the transmission of knowledge.
• At the center, a man in red, seen from behind, pulls on a chain—likely the forge’s bellows—and manipulates flasks on a table.
• On the right, two gentlemen in wide brimmed hats converse at a table with another alchemist and a woman holding a child, while two figures peer through a small window.
• A small dog crosses the scene, adding a touch of everyday life.
More than 40 distinct objects can be counted throughout the space:
• Glassware: flasks, alembics, jars, tubes—typical of chemical and alchemical practices.
• Instruments: balances, mortars, tongs, retorts, grindstone—precision tools for manipulation.
• Books and manuscripts: open and closed. In traditional religious iconography, the open book represents exoteric teaching (official, publicly proclaimed), while the closed book symbolizes esoteric teaching (reserved for initiates, hidden from the uninitiated). Through this repeated motif, the painter seems to convey a message.
• Furniture: cluttered tables, filled shelves, chests—reinforcing the idea of intense work.
• Unusual objects: stuffed fish, globes, hourglass—evoking the philosophical and sometimes esoteric dimension of alchemy.
• Open window: revealing the city’s rooftops, creating a mise en abyme and a breath of air within the composition.
This painting illustrates the 17th century fascination with natural sciences, medicine, and occult knowledge.
It also testifies to the valorization of intellectual and manual labor, in an era when the boundaries between art, science, and magic were porous.
Through his sense of detail and mastery of light, Gérard Thomas offers here an immersive and almost documentary vision of an alchemist’s cabinet.
Thomas is represented in several European collections, notably the Royal Collection Trust.
His works are often compared to those of Balthasar van den Bossche, with whom he collaborated on similar scenes.
This painting belongs to a pictorial tradition that would later influence scientific representations of the 18th century.
Several versions of this composition exist, with variations.
Good condition. Sold with certificate of authenticity.
