A man and a woman demonstrating the process of fermentation and distillation in alchemy. Etching, ca. 17th century.

In the fourth scene down an old naked man wearing an upside down crescent moon on his breast and holding a child in his arm, takes a bottle containing clouds from the woman

Laurinda Dixon comments that the couple present throughout the Mutus liber are shown in recollection of Nicolas Flamel and his wife Perrenelle (Nicolas Flamel, His exposition of the hieroglyphical figures (1624), ed. Laurinda Dixon, London 1994, p. xxx)

Bears number: Pl. 5

Gareth Roberts, The mirror of alchemy, London 1994, p. 64

Wellcome Collection 36178i