The Alchemical Cabinet
The Drowning King
The old king undone, so something new can be drawn out.
- Work
- from Splendor Solis
- Plate
- The Drowning King
- Maker
- Attributed to Salomon Trismosin
- Date
- c. 1582
- Source
- British Library, Harley MS 3469 · 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 crowned king sinks to his neck in a dark marsh, one hand raised, while a rescuer reaches from the bank. In the language of Splendor Solis this is the dissolution — the old king, the base matter, drowned and undone so that something new can be drawn out. Painted around 1582 in the manner of a Netherlandish miniature, the scene sets its violent alchemical meaning inside a mild pastoral landscape, all soft hills and careful trees, the border around it teeming with flowers. It is one of the manuscript's most memorable images: catastrophe rendered with the tenderness of a devotional page.
See it on your wall
The plate, in your home
The Drowning King 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 Splendor Solis (1582), held by British Library, Harley MS 3469 · 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.
