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Dimensions: 99 by 51cm., 39 by 20in.

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Provenance: PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE COLLECTION

Mr Ricome, thence by descent to his grandson
Sale: Sotheby's Monaco, 5 December 1989, lot 549
Purchased at the above sale by the present owner

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Exhibited: Paris, Salon de 1895
Paris, Salon des Rose-Croix, 1896, no. 82 (as Ecce ancilla Domini)

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Literature: Camille Mauclair, 'Compte rendu de l'exposition de 1895', La Revue des revues, 15 May 1900, p. 364
J. Daurelle & P. Fort, Armand Point et son oeuvre, Paris, 1901, p. 24

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Notes: Painted in 1895, the present work is a fusion of Italian Renaissance painting and French symbolist currents of the period.

Born in Algiers, Armand Point began his career painting Middle Eastern subjects. He subsequently discovered Ruskin and the Pre-Raphaelites. A visit to Italy in 1894 led Point to model his work on the artists of the Florentine Renaissance, in particular the work of Botticelli and Leonardo da Vinci, including adopting their painterly techniques such as the use of egg tempera instead of oils, as in the present work. Under the dominating influence of Gustave Moreau (see lots 230 & 232), his work was also aligned with Symbolism. He became a disciple of Rosicrucianism and a friend of Sâr Peladan (the founding member of the symbolist Rose-Croix group and Salon), fastidiously rejecting the modern industrial world and what he considered the excessive realism of Zola or Courbet.

Ricome, a friend of Point, whom he met when, in the footsteps of William Morris, he founded the Atelier de Haute-Claire at Marlotte, which produced jewellery, furniture, wallpaper, fabrics and ceramics. Ricome was a local artisan who specialised in bronze and enamel techniques and soon became Point's closest co-worker.