ALCHEMICAL FIGURE: ANDROGYNE, 1941
Watercolour, ink and crayon. 14½ x 9in. (37.3 x 23.3cm.)
Titled upper left. Inscribed on the reverse: ‘Identity’.
Provenance
National Trust bequest.
Two full length figures face each other, in silhouette, their profiles overlapping. Out of their profiles, one blue the other red, emerges another profile, taller than the others, half pink and half blue. The merger of the male and female principles into the androgynous whole.
In the final stage of the alchemist’s Great Work, all opposites are resolved and the separate male and female principles unite to produce the Philosopher’s Stone. Symbolically, this is usually portrayed as the fusion of the King and Queen into the androgyne – the Unified Being with both male and female attributes.
The work is unframed and has probably never been exhibited.