In 1957, Frederick Sommer began to make camera-less photographs– a process that would later greatly impact contemporary photography. One of his most famous images created in this method is Paracelsus, which the photographer conjured up by squeezing oil paint between cellophane and then letting light pass through onto sensitized paper. Sommer named the resulting apparition after the Northern Renaissance doctor, alchemist and philosopher who made important contributions to both science and medicine while seeking hidden knowledge through occult practices.

Other prints of this image are in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, the Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena, the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. and the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles.