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empirical work in chemistry; if only he would lower the vessel a bit
and look more relaxed, he might be viewed as the perfect experimental
chemist.
Our second example is a series of portraits of Marcelin Berthelot
(1827-1907) in which, unlike in the case of Dalton, the uroscopy/impos-
ture pose already appears in what seems to be a serious painting, before it
was actually transformed into a proper satirical caricature. Figure 10a is a
well-known photograph of Berthelot at work in a laboratory from the
late nineteenth century. He is looking down at his work-bench where in
his left hand he holds a test tube as if he is preparing to run a reaction.
Figure 10b is an oil painting of Berthelot by Harry Herman Salomon
(1860-1936) based on a photograph taken in the late nineteenth or early
twentieth century and perhaps painted after Bertholet's death. If you
compare both images (the setting, equipment, and dress), it is obvious
that the painting was made either directly after the photograph in Figure
10a or from a photograph taken on the same occasion. Thus, Salomon
either modified the pose of the photograph or chose another one from the
set to present Berthelot in a pose that almost exactly matches the classi-
cal uroscopy motif, except that the flask is replaced with a test tube.
Since the painting otherwise fits the classical genre of portraiture, we
may assume that the reference to the uroscopy motif was meant only as a
mild satirical allusion. One might suspect that at the turn of the century
many viewers no longer understood the allusion and its symbolic mean-
ing. However, even if the symbolic knowledge was beginning to fade, it
was still present, as a further transformation of Berthelot's portrait illus-
trates. To leave no doubt of the connection to uroscopy, a later unknown
caricaturist lifted Berthelot' arm a bit higher and replaced the test tube
with a urinal, now the modern version that is still used in hospitals today
(Figure 10c).
The famous 1885 painting of Louis Pasteur (1822-1895) by Albert
Edelfelt (1854-1905) is probably the first authorized portrait of a nine-
teenth-century chemist that appropriates the classical uroscopy/imposter
motif without being a satire or bearing deliberate satirical allusions
(Figure 11a). Given Pasteur's fame, particularly in the early twentieth
century, and the significance of the painting, it is likely that this image
considerably contributed to making this pose the icon of the chemical
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