The Alchemical Cabinet
Lambspring, Figure I: Two Fishes in the Sea
Two fishes swim in one sea.
- Work
- from The Book of Lambspring, in the Musaeum Hermeticum
- Plate
- Prima Figura
- Maker
- Lambspring; engraved by Matthäus Merian
- Date
- 1678
- Source
- Published Frankfurt, 1678 · scan: DPLA via Wikimedia Commons
Format
The full-resolution scan, color-managed to the source plate — yours to print, study, and explore.
Size
$29.00
The story
Two large fishes swim side by side in a calm sea, a harbour town and sailing ships behind them. The caption reads: the sea is the body, the two fishes are spirit and soul. This is the first figure of the Book of Lambspring, a short alchemical poem with fifteen engravings by Matthäus Merian, printed here in the Musaeum Hermeticum at Frankfurt in 1678. The poem works in pairs: two creatures, two principles, that must become one.
See it on your wall
The plate, in your home
Lambspring, Figure I: Two Fishes in the Sea 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 The Book of Lambspring, in the Musaeum Hermeticum (1678), held by Published Frankfurt, 1678 · scan: DPLA via 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.
From the same hand
