Alchemy - COENDERS van HELPEN (Barent). Thrésor... Lot 24

Alchemy - COENDERS van HELPEN (Barent). Thrésor de la philosophie des Anciens où l'on conduit le lecteur par degrez à la connoissance de tous les Métaux & Minéraux, et de la manière de les travailler & de s'en servir, pour arriver enfin à la perfection du Grand Œuvre. In the form of Dialogues and enriched with very beautiful soft cuts. Cologne, Claude Le Jeune, 1693. In-folio of [3] ff.-240 pp. Modern vellum style half paper boards. Third edition of this work published in 1686 under the title "Escalier des Sages, ou la philosophie des Anciens. Conceived and put in light by an Amateur of the Truth who has for the anagram of his name : Rediens nunc ero pulchra fides". The illustration consists of a frontispiece bearing the title "Escalier des Sages" and 17 plates engraved outside the text on copperplate, including 10 beautiful hermetic-allegorical compositions. The Staircase of the Wise is presented in the form of a dialogue between two characters climbing the degrees of hermetic knowledge. The author, a Dutch alchemist from Groningen, was a member of the States General and a diplomat in France, Denmark and Sweden. Top corner of the leaves cut (without loss of text but with small damage to the framing of the plates), old spotting in places, a few pages or plates uniformly scorched. (Caillet 2417 for the first edition "Ouvrage dont les exemplaires peu communs sont recherchés par les amateurs d'alchimie" and 2419 for this edition; S. de Guaita 1128 and 1129.)