The Emblem Shelf
The Ouroboros
A line that closes on itself, and inside it, everything.
- Work
- from the Chrysopoeia of Cleopatra
- Maker
- After a Greek alchemical manuscript
- Date
- reproduced 16th c.
- Source
- Chrysopoeia of Cleopatra · 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 serpent bends into a perfect circle and swallows its own tail — the ouroboros, among the oldest symbols in the Western imagination, standing for the round of dissolution and renewal, the whole that feeds on itself. The motif reaches back to a Greek alchemical manuscript, the Chrysopoeia of Cleopatra, where it encircles the words hen to pan — 'the all is one.' For the alchemists it was the emblem of their whole enterprise: matter endlessly consumed and reborn in the sealed vessel. Few images say so much with so little. A line that closes on itself, and inside it, everything.
See it on your wall
The plate, in your home
The Ouroboros 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 Chrysopoeia of Cleopatra (1550), held by Chrysopoeia of Cleopatra · 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.
