The portraits of Paracelsus to be found in old books, as
well as some celebrated paintings, are curiously various
as likenesses. The oldest and by far the most frequent
representation of him on title pages of his works is more
or less similar to the portrait marked A, p. 247.
This particular drawing was copied from one in the print room
of the British Museum. Portrait B is copied from
a painting attributed to Rubens which was for a long time
in the Duke of Marlborough’s collection at Blenheim. It was
sold publicly in 1886 in London for £125 and is now in the
“Collection Kums” at Antwerp. There is a similar painting,
believed to be a copy of this one, in the Bodleian Library at
Oxford.
In the year 1875, at an exhibition of historical paintings
held at Nancy (France), a painting “attributed to Albert
Dürer,” and bearing his name in a cartouche, was exhibited and
described as “Portrait presumé de Paracelse.” It was not a
copy but was unmistakably the same person as the one shown in
the painting of Rubens. It came from a private collection and
was sold to a local dealer for 2,000 francs, and afterwards
disposed of to an unknown stranger for 3,000 francs. It has
not been traced since. Dürer died in 1528 (thirteen years
before the date of the death of Paracelsus). There is no
mention of this likeness in any of his letters. It may have
been the work of one of his pupils.
The third portrait (C) which is unlike either of the
others professes to have been painted from life (“Tintoretto
ad vivum pinxit”) by Jacope Robusti, more commonly known as
Tintoretto. The original has not been found, and the earliest
print from it was a copper-plate engraving in a collection
issued by Bitiskius of Geneva in 1658. The picture here given
is a reduced copy of that engraving from a phototype made by
Messrs. Angerer and Göschl, of Vienna, and published in a
valuable work by the late Dr. Carl Aberle in 1890 entitled
“Grabdenkmal, Schadel, und Abbildungen des Theophrastus
Paracelsus.” The publisher of that book, Mr. Heinrich Dieter,
has kindly permitted me to use this picture.
Tintoretto scarcely left Venice all his life, and it has been
supposed that he may have become acquainted with Paracelsus
when the latter was, as he said he was, an army surgeon in the
Venetian army in the years 1521-1525. Dr. Aberle points out
that if Tintoretto was born in 1518, as is generally supposed,
the painting from life was impossible; even if he was born in
1512, as has also been asserted, it was unlikely. Moreover,
the gentle-looking person represented, whose amiable “bedside
manner” is obviously depicted in the portrait, could not
possibly have been the untamable Paracelsus if any reliance
can be placed on the art of physiognomy.