Artist: Henry Alexander (1860–1894)
Year: ca. 1885–87
Medium: Oil on canvas
This is one of several interior scenes in which Alexander showed people at work, surrounded by their equipment. The portrait d’apparat—an image in which a figure appears along with objects associated with his or her daily life—reflects Alexander’s training in the Munich academy of fine arts and showcases his skills both as a portraitist and as a still-life painter. His subject here is the chemist and assayer Thomas Price (1837–1912), and the setting is Price’s San Francisco laboratory. A consultant to international mining companies, Price was noted for his practical and theoretical knowledge of metals and mines.
Definitely taking some artistic liberties with how colorful the liquids in all those bottles are, lol. Most chemicals a chemist would work with are much more boring clear or white, or sometimes an off-putting brown. And on the occasional instances they work with something colorful, they probably have only one or two different colors they’re working with.
That said, it looks beautiful, and we can all suspend disbelief for a little while. Sometimes artistic license is worth it.
Maybe he‘s working with piss and red wine.
“Street chemist” lol
You are applying the realities of modern chemistry to chemistry from the 1800’s.
The first power station was in 1882, this is a time when this guy wouldn’t have had access to any form of chemical analysis that required electronics. Most of his ability to distinguish chemicals would have been based on smell and color the materials that entered the reaction and how they react with other chemicals. Especially when you add in he is a mining assayer. Heavy metals tend to make really bright pretty colors.