A Study House Inside the Walls

A two-storey timber house with a tiled roof stands between stone towers and half-timbered neighbours in a walled town. Upstairs on the left, a study holds tall bookcases, a desk with an open ledger and a lamp, a round clock and framed diagrams, while two scholars read from a lectern and a loose page. Beside it, a workroom with a stone-tiled floor has a young man lifting a hanging wooden frame over a bench as another crawls across a chalk circle copying marks. Downstairs left, two apprentices study sheets beside a stone table that carries a blue chair, with glass bottles and a funnel overhead. Downstairs right, an older man examines a tray with a magnifying glass while a boy holds a potted seedling near a glass cabinet of crystals. Hanging bottles, the chalk circle and the cabinet of crystals give each corner of the study house a detail to build from.