There’s a long and ancient tradition of performing what would now be considered to be crude experiments in physics and chemistry, most commonly aimed at transforming one substance into another. Founded on flawed principles such as matter consisting of four elements, its best-known goal was the transformation of ‘base’ metals like lead into precious metals, particularly gold. In their quest for this, alchemists developed exotic equipment including a range of blown glass such as alembic vessels, trademarks of alchemy.

At least in popular perception, alchemy was one of the ‘dark arts’ and allied with witchcraft and sorcery. Myths like the rejuvenation of Jason’s father Aeson by the sorceress Medea have been depicted as involving both.

In the late seventeenth century Domenicus van Wijnen painted his account of Medea Rejuvenating Aeson, invoking both alchemy and witchcraft. Medea, naked and reclining in Hecate’s golden chariot, points her wand at the body of Aeson lying on the ground as she casts a spell. A glass sphere above her contains a small devil and shoots a trail of flame and sparks like a rocket. Medea is assisted by four putti and has what appears to be Hecate herself behind her, and a full moon is rising above the horizon. Scattered around the scene are objects associated with the ‘dark arts’, including a glass cauldron, a jar of brown liquid, a sacrificial knife, old books, and a burning candle.

Bartolomeo Guidobono’s Medea Rejuvenates Aeson from about 1700 is more of a puzzle to read, as Medea, now dressed in an unkempt and wild manner, is accompanied by two men. The near-lifeless and pale body of Aeson rests behind her, but a younger man, possibly the rejuvenated Aeson, is materialising under a table. There is now a panoply of symbols associated with magic, including a snake and toad, large tomes of spells on top of which is a lizard, an open fire on a small stand, and an assortment of more normal animals including a dog, fox, and deer. The table in the background has further magical equipment, such as an orrery, and a bat is flying to the right of Medea’s head.

A similar combination is seen in visual accounts of part two of Goethe’s Faust. When Faust is taken unconscious into his old study, Mephistopheles poses as Faust and interviews his young student Wagner, and the latter uses alchemical processes to create a homunculus. This is the one scene from this second part to prove popular with artists.

Alfred van Muyden’s illustration of Scene: Laboratory, Wagner Creates the Homunculus from about 1840 is an early example referring to popular imaginings of such alchemical processes.

This anonymous version of Homunculus, Faust part 2 is simpler in conception.

Franz Xaver Simm’s Homunculus in the Vial from 1899 uses light very effectively.

Moritz Retzsch’s line drawing for an illustration from 1836 is more detailed and better-developed. Wagner holds the large glass vial in which the homunculus has been created, as Mephistopheles points towards the collapsed figure of Faust in his study, at the left.

With the age of Enlightenment, alchemy was viewed as a proto-science to be debunked with the arrival of early modern chemistry and physics.

Today’s concept of alchemy as a mixture of magic and charlatanism hadn’t been established at the time that Joseph Wright of Derby was painting. The Alchymist, in Search of the Philosopher’s Stone, Discovers Phosphorus, and Prays for the Successful Conclusion of his Operation, as was the Custom of the Ancient Chymical Astrologers (1771-95), which summarises its narrative in the title, is comparatively sympathetic to alchemy.

Wright created this image in 1771 from a variety of sources, including drawings provided by Peter Perez Burdett from his new chemical laboratory in Liverpool, and classical engravings. It is particularly appropriate in depicting the purification of phosphorous, which was seen as a productive and positive outcome from the ancient pursuit of alchemy.

By the late nineteenth century, when Elihu Vedder painted The Dead Alchemist (c 1868), that had changed. Vedder shows a lone figure, slumped and apparently dead against a carved chest. Scattered around him is the equipment that might previously have been used by an alchemist.

The eccentric Belgian artist Félicien Rops conjured with various images of devils and witches. One of his more gentle paintings of the occult is The Incantation (c 1878). A Faustian character sits in front of an open copy of Compendium Maleficarum, a witch-hunter’s manual first published in Latin in 1608. He’s surrounded by the tools of his trade: alembics from alchemy, a sprig of mandrake, a pelican, an owl, and a black cat is behind his chair. He has just conjured up a naked young woman, who is popping out of a picture frame. It all seems good fun, as if witchcraft and alchemy should be hobbies for every family.

In John Collier’s The Laboratory (1895), there’s clearly a narrative between the old alchemist and a young woman, who is trying to take an object from the man’s right hand. This may be a reference to a written narrative that Collier was exploring prior to painting his real problem pictures.