ARMAND POINT (1861-1932) & HAUTE-CLAIRE -... Lot 12

ARMAND POINT (1861-1932) & HAUTE-CLAIRE - COLLECTION ÉMILE NAIL DÉMELETTE Two figurines, unique piece, 1903 Very rare artist's ring in the symbolist style. Gold, polychrome enamel, Burmese ruby. Signed with the snail in relief on a side of the ring. Bears the hallmark of title. Gross weight : 14,3 g Provenance: - Émile Nail Démelette Collection. High school classmate of Armand Point, then patron of the artist. - Work remained in the descent of the precedent. Important : Our ring visible on the finger of Mrs. Nail Démelette on a painting by Armand Point kept by the descendants of Mr. Émile Nail Démelette, owners of the jewel. Exhibition : Works by Armand Point and Haute-Claire - Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, May 1903. Our ring exhibited under n° 54 of the catalog. Bibliography : La Vie Heureuse - August 1903. Our ring reproduced on page 156 in an article entitled Chez Armand Point à Haute-Claire by Paul and Victor Margueritte. Armand Point, [the lesson of the Beautiful] In 1893, Armand Point returned from a stay in Italy where he discovered the Italian primitives. The inspiration he drew from the High Renaissance went beyond pictorial forms, it was an ideal of life that he found there. Recognized for his orientalist scenes, he made the radical choice to reorient his work. The universality of the work he discovered among Italian artists, both painters and goldsmiths, led him to found the Bourron-Marlotte artist colony. Sculptors, painters, gilders and enamellers mingled there, producing jewelry, goldsmiths, objets d'art and tapestries using traditional artistic techniques. Gathered around this "new Benvenuto Cellini", as his friends liked to call him, the artist-craftsmen committed themselves to a total program: the embellishment of the house. The colony of Haute-Claire, named after the sword of Olivier, comrade of Roland of Roncesvalles, confirms Armand Point's taste for a heroic and valiant Middle Ages. He owes his inspiration as much to the medieval bestiary as to the fin de siècle esotericism of the intellectual circles he frequented. His contemporaries often reproached him for producing a "learned art", an "art of hermitage" intended for a small number of chosen ones. This is to misunderstand his intention: [We work to prevent the sacred fire from being extinguished, to confer it on others who will be understood by their time. We are only the torchbearers of the ancient beauty]2 Demanding and impervious to the spirit of the times, Armand Point designed precious boxes, several of which are kept in important collections at Orsay or the Petit-Palais; and poetic rings, where nymphs and fantastic animals adorn the rare and delicate gold rings, which he signed with a modest snail. Our ring, exhibited in 1903 at the Georges Petit gallery, presents two bathers languishing around a pond-ruby under the cover of a gold and enamel tree. Ingenious and delicate, this jewel embodies the essence of Armand Point's work: The lesson of Beauty. 1 Paul and Victor Margueritte - At Armand Point's home in Haute-Claire - La Vie Heureuse, August 1903. 2 Armand Point - Preface to the catalog of the exhibition OEuvres d'Armand Point et de Haute-Claire - Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, 1903.