Arnold von Winkelried and the Anabaptists, Hand Colored Lithograph, 1842

This is an original antique lithograph with hand coloring from the Galleria Universale di Tutti i Popoli del Mondo (Venice, Giuseppe Antonelli, 1842). The upper image is a crowded battle scene. At the left, men in gray steel armor and helmets with crimson plumes thrust a bundle of long pikes forward; the points converge on a figure in dark armor at the center who takes them against his body. Behind him a yellow banner rises over the fighting, and at the right men in yellow, purple and green with red caps swing clubs and flails above their heads. In the lower image a young woman with long dark braids, a gray jacket and a blue skirt holds a saddled horse by the bridle and a small can in her other hand. Beside her stands an old bearded man in a gray hat and long gray coat over a red waistcoat and breeches, arms folded, leaning on a stick, with a two wheeled cart carrying a barrel behind him.

The top margin is lettered "Tav. 62" at the left, "SVIZZERA" in the center and "Tom. IV" at the right. The caption under the upper image reads "Arnoldo di Winkelried" (Arnold von Winkelried) and the caption under the lower image reads "Anabattisti" (Anabaptists).

According to Swiss tradition, Arnold von Winkelried opened the way to victory at the Battle of Sempach in 1386 by gathering the enemy's pikes into his own body so that his comrades could break into the Austrian line. The Anabaptists were a movement of the Protestant Reformation that rejected infant baptism; one of its earliest communities formed in Zurich in the 1520s.

This is an original antique print, not a modern reproduction. This item is sold unframed.