Turlington's Balsam of Life bottles as represented in a brochure dated 1755-1757
period print · 1755
LINK
SUMMARY
Discovered as a Wikimedia Commons file record (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:BalsomOfLifeBottles.jpg) and verified by direct fetch of that file page and the Commons API metadata; per the provenance rule, `url_or_archive_link` points at the more direct Gutenberg-hosted Smithsonian reproduction record and the Commons file is retained here and in the rights notes. Commons dates the illustration to 1755-1757, credits it as an illustration from a period Turlington brochure, names Robert Turlington as artist/author, and marks it Public Domain Mark 1.0 (published before 1931). The Commons credit field links directly to the Project Gutenberg transcription of Griffenhagen and Young's 1959 Smithsonian museum-bulletin history (griffenhagen-young-old-english-patent-medicines-1959), which is the more direct holding/reproduction record for the underlying 1755-1757 brochure image and is cited alongside this Commons file record. A vision-capable review of the downloaded image confirmed it shows two legible bottle-face line engravings, one reading (in raised capitals) a By-the-King's-Royal-Patent line ending LONDON and the other reading Robert Turlington's name, his invented Balsam of Life, and the date January 26 1754, consistent with this description. (The transcription is the vision reviewer's own reading of the image, not a quotation copied from a fetched web page.)
NOTES
A Wikimedia Commons-hosted reproduction of Turlington’s own bottle illustration from a period brochure (dated by Commons to 1755-1757), itself reproduced in the Smithsonian’s 1959 history of English patent medicines in America. Public Domain Mark 1.0. Used as the case’s lead media asset.