Salmacis and Hermaphroditus

Set within a detailed mountainous landscape, the print captures the struggle between the reclining Hermaphroditus and the nymph Salmacis, who clings to him from behind. The figures are rendered with the muscularity and complex twisting poses characteristic of the Haarlem Mannerist style. A Latin inscription at the bottom recounts the Ovidian narrative of their physical union into a being of dual sex.

In the Western esoteric tradition, the fusion of Salmacis and Hermaphroditus is the primary mythological archetype for the alchemical Hermaphrodite or Rebis. This 'conjunction of opposites' represents the philosophical marriage of solar and lunar principles (sulfur and mercury) required to achieve the Philosopher's Stone.