The Conjunction (Rosarium Philosophorum)

This woodcut shows a crowned male figure and a crowned female figure engaged in sexual intercourse. They are entwined within a landscape of wavy, stylized lines representing either water or terrain. To the upper right, a stylized sun face appears, while a crescent moon face is positioned below it. The figures are nude, and their poses are interlocked to represent the alchemical union of opposites.

This image is the second of twenty illustrations from the influential alchemical treatise 'Rosarium philosophorum' (1550). It illustrates the 'conjunctio', the sacred marriage of chemical principles—sulfur and mercury, represented here as King and Queen—essential to the production of the Philosopher's Stone.