London, Wellcome Institute MS. 4770. 185 + 3 folios. 240x170mm. 18th Century [c. 1725.] Tesson, Jacques and others. Le livre de Jacques Taisson orphèvre contenant le Secret du Grand Oeuvre. Composé à Marseille l'année 1581. 1. ff1-120 J. Tesson. Le Livre. 2. ff121-164 N. Valois. Hebdomas hebdomadarum. [With 37 illustrations, instead of 42, and no text, except for the legends in Sanscrit, Chaldean, Hebrew etc. as in MS. Wellcome 4907.] 3. ff164v-172 La Pierre des Philosophes [in verse.] 4. ff173-185 Rencontre et entrétien d'un philosophe inconnu. [3 leaves containing 6 symbolic alchemical watercolour illustrations 2 to a page.] Drawing 1. A cauldron is placed in a fire to the lower centre of the figure. Two cows look out from the right and left of the drawing. In the steam or grey fume which rises from the cauldron (or curcible?) we see a yellow sun face, an orange star, and a green plant with a red bud. Seven saturn symbols are also seen in the fumes. From an overhanging branch a dog, or some other such animal is suspended in the fumes. It is not clear whether this animal is dead and being roasted or alive. Drawing 2. Against a blue background of the sky and clouds, we see a snake forming an ourouborus circle. The circular space this defined contains an outpouring of light with rays, and the face of a woman. Drawing 3. Here the ourobouros snake with the Woman face within the circular space has descended from the sky onto the earth. From above the Sun and Moon send down beams upon this ouroboros snake. Drawing 4. A mountain with a few trees or vegetation almost fills the frame of this figure. At the bottom centre is a cave with seven symbols of Jupiter, while another 15 Jupiter symbols circle round the bottom of the mountain. Drawing 5. In an interior cell with brown rocky walls or perhaps inside the cave, we see a distillation in progress and a red liquid being collected in the receiver. Drawing 6. Within a circular fume of grey clouds against a blue background of the sky, we see a naked Saturn-Chronos figure with his scythe, and grey beard. Above him are the Sun and Moon. A copy of this treatise also of the 18th century is found in the Bibliothéque de Lyon No. 971( 900), where it is entered as 'Jacques Tesson ou Le Tesson. Le grand et excellent Oeuvre de Sages, contenant trois traités ou dialogues; Dialogue du Lyon verd, du grand Thériac, et du Régime'.