The Alchemical Marriage of the King and Queen

The image features two figures, a King on the left and a Queen on the right, both wearing crowns. The King stands atop a personified sun with a human face, while the Queen stands upon a crescent moon with a human face. They join their inner hands and hold a crossed pair of sprigs in their outer hands. Above them, a dove flies downwards toward the intersection of the sprigs, positioned beneath a six-pointed star. The figures are rendered in a linear, woodcut style with dark outlines and minimal shading.

This image is a seminal illustration from the 'Rosarium philosophorum' (The Rosary of the Philosophers), a core text of 16th-century alchemy. It depicts the 'chymical marriage' (coniunctio), representing the union of opposites—Sulfur and Mercury, or the masculine solar and feminine lunar principles—necessary for the completion of the Great Work.