The Decapitation of the King and Queen (Aurora consurgens)

On the left, a blue creature with a serpentine tail, a star-like headdress, and an axe slung over its shoulder holds the severed head of a fair-skinned person. Two decapitated bodies, one dressed in white and one in orange, lie on the ground before the creature, with a second severed head resting nearby. To the right, a large white vessel sits atop a red, flame-licked base containing three distinct globes or stones—two dark and one central gold. The background is a solid, flat reddish-pink.

This illumination is from the 'Aurora consurgens', a 15th-century alchemical treatise attributed to Pseudo-Aquinas. It depicts the 'mortificatio' or putrefaction phase of the Great Work, where the duality of the King and Queen must be destroyed and combined in the vessel to achieve transmutation.