A workroom on the ground floor of an old house, with massive beams supporting the high wooden ceiling, a stone floor, and a large open fireplace. A similar room is shown in a painting of an alchemist's laboratory by E. Lomont, 1890. The furnishings of the room (pans, mortar and pestle etc.) have human faces, and the figures have animal features. Left, a man dines on a frog, and another man (a portrait?) enters the room. Above the fireplace, a witch riding on a broomstick paired with another figure riding on an umbrella. Possibly a satire on a fellow-chemist (Dumas?), or a jeu d'esprit representing what outsiders imagined went on in the chemist's laboratory.