The Hippogriff figures prominently in the history of the Nabi movement (inspired by the Hebrew word nabi, translated as “prophet”); adherents saw themselves as the prophets of a new art. Paul-Élie Ranson gifted this painting to the painter and poet Auguste Cazalis, a fellow member of the group who came up with its name.


This work, which intermingles literary and iconographic sources and is embellished with the curving, fluid lines that heralded Art Nouveau, was painted in 1891, the year of the Nabis’ first exhibition; it is all the more mysterious with its array of symbols.