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Premium Armand POINT (Algiers, 1860 - Naples, 1932)
Beauty with a ly…
See original version (French)
Armand POINT (Algiers, 1860 - Naples, 1932)
Beauty with a ly…
See original version (French)
Lot no. 146
Description
Armand POINT (Algiers, 1860 - Naples, 1932)
Beauty with a lyre
Tempera on plaster, fresco
Signed and dated 'APoint / 1895' lower right
In a cassetta frame with painted scrolls of iris leaves and flowers, bees and dragonfly, made by the artist, signed 'APoint' lower right
Size with frame: 80.5 x 103.5 cm
The Beauty with the Lyre, tempera on plaster, fresco, by A. Point
20.07 x 29.13 in.
51 x 74 cm
Provenance: Anonymous sale; Orléans, Hôtel des Ventes Madeleine Mes Binoche et de Maredsous, 15 October 2011, no. 12 ;
Private collection, Paris
Exhibitions : Pierre-Olivier Fanica, "Armand Point et Haute-Claire (seconde partie)", Bulletin d'information et de liaison de l'association des Amis de Bourron-Marlotte, n° 31 Printemps-Eté 1993, ref. 16, p. 29, repr.
Before becoming one of the great figures of Symbolism, Armand Point tried his hand at Orientalism, which his origins inspired in him from the moment he first became interested in painting and drawing. Born in Algiers, he did not really live there until the age of 17, when he decided to leave his family in Paris. After spending more than ten years in North Africa, he returned to Paris in 1888, with a solid reputation and a talent that his regular entries in the Salon, and above all the first official purchase of one of his paintings by the French state in 1884, helped to make known.
At the turn of the 1890s, he made two decisive encounters for the rest of his career and his artistic output. He met the poet Élémir Bourges, a lover of art and literature, who explained the close relationship between poetry and painting. They struck up a deep friendship and, under this influence, Armand Point's art opened up to more spiritual considerations. Subsequently, this aesthetic evolution and his nascent mysticism seduced Joséphin Péladan, who, during their meetings, convinced him once and for all to join his movement and his vision of ideal art, which he wanted to be both contemplative and mystical, almost divine. Armand Point exhibited at the first editions of the Salon de la Rose+Croix, founded by Sâr Péladan, between 1892 and 1896.
While his work was initially marked by medieval symbolism, with heroines in armour and a dreamlike fauna embracing dragons, hippogriffs and unicorns, in 1894 Armand Point made his first trip to Italy and was deeply influenced by the art of the Quattrocento. A few months later, he founded the Haute-Clair workshops, with the aim of reviving the tradition of the art industries of the Middle Ages in France, in the same way as the Arts and Crafts movement across the Channel.
Our painting, precisely dated 1895, a few months after his return from Italy, fits in perfectly with Armand Point's new approach to painting. It is also part of a series of works by the artist based on the model of the woman with the lyre. At the Salon de la Rose-Croix in 1896, our artist exhibited Avril, a full-length version derived from our composition, also painted in fresco in 1895, acquired directly by the State and now conserved - unfortunately in a very poor condition - at the Musée d'Orsay (Inv. RF 1979 25, fig. 1). An ambitious preparatory drawing is also known, exhibited at the same Salon and sold several times. Unlike the Musée d'Orsay version, our painting, preserved in its original frame invented by the artist, comes to us in a marvellous state of conservation, quite rare for works respecting this particularly fragile fresco technique.
Armand POINT (Algiers, 1860 - Naples, 1932)
51 x 74 cm
See original version (French)
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