Discours philosophique sur les trois principes animal, végétal et minéral, ou, La clef du sanctuaire philosophique
This 1781 French treatise on alchemy, the Discours philosophique sur les trois principes animal, végétal et minéral, was written by Sabine Stuart de Chevalier and published in Paris by François-Augustin Quillau, with its frontispiece-style plate engraved by Jacques Le Roy. Its engraved plate shows a bearded alchemist at a furnace reaching toward a flask while a cloaked woman stands beside him in a library with arched windows and a tree outside. A designer could draw on its crisp, dense line engraving and its arrangement of scholarly clutter, with glass vessels, bound books and a globe, framed by an arch.
