This is one of a pair of paintings (see CWLF 127, 406900) depicting a collector surrounded by his possessions and an physician in his laboratory. Both works consciously perpetuate the tradition of David Teniers, who specialised in alchemists and collector’s cabinets (see CWLF 99, 407264, CWLF 105, 400932 and CWLF 106, 400693). For Teniers (and his contemporaries) however the alchemist was a fool and the collector usually a friend or patron: images of the two types would not have been treated as comparable. Thomas’s collector on the other hand seems as much of a fool as his physician, wearing an outmoded ruff, perhaps being duped by an old woman and certainly keeping low company.

This is a physician not strictly an alchemist: the main character is studying a copy of Galen’s work, while in the background a man receives surgery to his foot. However the type of pedant lost in overcomplicated meditation is clearly derived from that of the alchemist, while the experiments taking place and the general laboratory clutter throughout the barn-like space precisely correspond to alchemist scenes. The physician here stares at a skull and hour-glass to remind him of his mortality and thus the ultimate futility of his labour. It may also suggest that like an alchemist he is stupid enough to think that his researches can challenge mortality and the aging process.