The Red King, the Queen and Mercury

The Red King, the Queen and Mercury

The King and the Queen as the central motif, with the Sun and the Moon in a secondary part. From Manuscripts and prints.

The motifs the picture carries, filed by role. The marks on the picture itself come with the entry.

  1. 1The King and the Queencentral motif
  2. 2The Sun and the Moonsecondary motif

A red king with a rayed face stands between a crowned woman in yellow and a figure in green carrying a caduceus; a band of stars above them; a row of small vessels along the ground below; the King and the Queen as the central motif, the Sun and the Moon by eye. By eye

Not yet decoded: the key and the sourced notes come with the entry. Until then the motifs above are tagged by eye and said so.

Record

Source
Rights
Public Domain Mark. Wellcome Collection marks the work as free of known copyright restrictions.
Restoration
None. A 1046 by 1400 pixel web copy made from the source file; nothing retouched, nothing upscaled.
Series
Titled here
The Red King, the Queen and Mercury. Wellcome Collection catalogues it as: A red-faced king stands in a red robe, flanked by a queen and the deity Mercury in green clothes; representing a stage in the process of alchemy. Coloured etching, ca. 18th century.
Checked
Wellcome Collection's own catalogue record, 4 September 2026: the rights, the maker, the date, accession c4tx7vet. The title on this page is ours, as the line above says. Not seen in the gallery.
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One symbol a week, decoded.

This picture is free at full size from its source, linked above. What an address gets is the Sunday letter: one picture, one symbol marked on it, what it meant and who said so, and the master files of the decoded plates as they are verified. Leave any time.

Cite
Symbolica, “The Red King, the Queen and Mercury”, Hand-coloured engraving, maker not recorded, date not recorded. thesymbolica.com/work/the-red-king-the-queen-and-mercury/