3-062-661 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

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, 1900-1909. Additional Info: 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