At an Oxfam bookshop I discovered an ancient folio edition (matching my folio paperbacks from the 1980s) of the novel La recherche de l'absolu (the quest of the absolute) by Balzac. It is the story of a rich bourgeois of Douai in the North of France, who becomes so obsessed with chemical investigations that he neglects his social obligations and commercial interests and ruins his family. So the edition I found features a painting of an alchemist by Louis Gabriel Eugène Isabey, Le cabinet d'un alchimiste (Palais des beaux-arts de Lille), which I found very fitting:
I looked it up and found the complete painting here and adopted it as my new header. The old one with the word "LABORATORY", from the front door of the Dyson Perrins Laboratory, must have been in place for nearly 9 years. In the early days I changed the pictures monthly, to mimic a wall calendar, but at some point I got stuck. The most recent changes I can find recorded date from April and March 2010.
I bought the book too, although I'm not sure I'll ever read it. Somehow I doubt whether I still have the patience to put up with Balzac.
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