The Sower and the King in the Furnace (Aurora Consurgens)

The central figure is a young person dressed in a white tunic and a pale pink mantle, shown walking toward the right while scattering small yellow, coin-like seeds from their left hand. To the right, a crowned head rises from a reddish, rounded pot that sits directly on top of licking orange-red flames. The background is a solid deep blue, punctuated by two stylized green trees on rocky outcrops flanking the scene. The overall style is that of a medieval manuscript illumination, characterized by flat spatial depth and symbolic, rather than naturalistic, representation.

This image appears in the 'Aurora Consurgens', an alchemical treatise often attributed to Pseudo-Aquinas, and utilizes agricultural imagery to depict the transmutation process. The sower represents the alchemist or the active principle, while the crowned head in the furnace symbolizes the 'King' or the perfected substance undergoing the transformative heat of the alchemical work.