A black man with a red head and right arm emerges from a foul stream into a landscape where a winged woman is waiting for him with a red garment; representing the transformations of the alchemical work from corruption to perfection. Watercolour painting by E.A. Ibbs.

  • Ibbs, Edith A.
Date:
1900-1909
Reference:
38738i
Part of:
Splendor solis
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Previous title, replaced June 2023 : A black man with a red head and right arm emerges from a foul stream into a landscape where a winged woman is waiting for him with a red garment; representing the transformations of the alchemical work from corruption to perfection. Watercolour painting.

Description

Lennep quotes the original text, which describes "un être condamnée aux cruels supplices d'un cloaque, paraissait aussi noir qu'un Maure, n'épargnant rien de ses forces pour délivrer son corps condamné aux infectes prisons de ce bourbier fangeux et plein d'immondices. Comme chacun restait sourd à sa complainte, il n'aspirait plus qu'à la Parque inhumaine, lorsqu'une jeune beauté plein d'humanité, vint à son secours." As well as being called a "moor" in this text, other alchemical texts refer to the figure as an Ethiopian (see Lennep, op. cit. p. 119). The text goes on to tell how the woman clothes the man in the robe, lifts him up and takes him with her to heaven

Publication/Creation

1900-1909

Physical description

1 painting : watercolour ; image 40 x 25.2 cm.

Creator/production credits

Painted by Edith Annie Ibbs (1863-1937) on commission from the secretary of the Historical Medical Exhibition organized by Henry S. Wellcome (C.J.S. Thompson), ca. 1907, and subsequently exhibited in the Wellcome Historical Medical Museum, Wigmore Street, London

References note

For detailed information on this series, cf. J. van Lennep, L'alchimie, Brussels 1984, pp. 110-129

Reference

Wellcome Collection 38738i

Reproduction note

After: Salomon Trismosin, Splendor solis, 1582, British Library, Harley ms. 3469

Type/Technique

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