The Celestial Figures
The Rayed Disc in the Dark
Light spreading into a square of darkness.
- Work
- from Utriusque Cosmi Historia
- Maker
- Robert Fludd; published by Johann Theodor de Bry
- Date
- 1617
- Source
- Published Oppenheim, 1617 · scan: Wikimedia Commons
Format
The full-resolution scan, color-managed to the source plate — yours to print, study, and explore.
Size
$29.00
The story
A bright disc sends long rays out into a field of deep shading, the light pushing back the dark toward the corners of the square. Robert Fludd opened his account of the making of the world, published at Oppenheim in 1617, with darkness, and the plates that follow let light in a little at a time. This is one of them. The engraving is all contrast: the densest crosshatching on the page set against the whitest paper the printer could leave.
See it on your wall
The plate, in your home
The Rayed Disc in the Dark printed large and framed, hung in rooms like yours. Every edition ships ready to become the piece the room is built around.
About this reproduction
- A faithful reproduction of a public-domain plate — from Utriusque Cosmi Historia (1617), held by Published Oppenheim, 1617 · scan: Wikimedia Commons. The work was published before 1931 and is centuries out of copyright.
- Printed to order on 200gsm EMA matte art paper; framed pieces sit behind acrylic, no mat.
- Color-managed to the source scan; we correct nothing and invent nothing.
- Ships in 5–10 business days, rolled in a heavy-wall tube (framed pieces ship flat-packed).
- If it arrives less than perfect, we reprint or refund — your choice.
Why our plates cost more than a poster: we print from the highest-resolution scans available, at sizes where the engraving itself becomes visible — the emblem line, the letterpress bite, the registration of colour — on stock made to outlive its owner.
