Witchcraft
Ca. 1912. Oil on canvas.On display elsewhere
The artist depicted a glass retort and several pharmacy bottles capped with glass stoppers used for containing chemicals, all on the table in the centre of the painting. The importance of glass to the field of chemistry or, more properly, alchemy, to which it rendered its first services, was second only to its use in optics. The first chemical, pharmaceutical and clinical objects were manufactured in the medieval glassworks that had been set up in the Central European forests. Later, thanks to advances in technology, production was centered mainly in the Venetian factories. The higher chemical durability of glass, coupled with its transparency, made its use more suitable and reliable to work with different substances than that of any other material (Fernández Navarro, J. M.; Capel del Águila, F. in: El vidrio en la pintura del Museo Nacional del Prado, 2012, p. 123).
Fernández Navarro, José María; Capel del Águila, Francisco, El vidrio en la pintura del Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 2012, p.123
