After the province of Lorraine was lost to Germany following the Franco-Prussian War in 1871, Frenchmen saw in Joan of Arc a new and powerful symbol. In 1875, Bastien-Lepage, a native of Lorraine, began to make studies for a picture of her. In the present painting, exhibited in the Salon of 1880, Joan is shown receiving her revelation in her parents' garden. Behind her are Saints Michael, Margaret, and Catherine.

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