Carved Chest Panel with Helmeted Bust, Antique Print, 1851

This is an original antique chromolithograph, printed in colors, from Le Moyen Âge et la Renaissance, lettered "PANNEAU D'UN COFFRE EN BOIS SCULPTÉ, appartenant à Mr Vitel." A single carved panel fills a rectangular field, printed in olive brown and golden tan with cream highlights. At its center a bust in left profile, wearing a close fitting helmet with a flared neck guard and a cuirass, sits inside a laurel wreath bound at four points. Around it are grotesques: at the upper left a beaked dragon's head on a scrolled body, at the upper right a bearded mask ending in foliage, and at the lower left a spotted beast with a horse's head. Candelabrum shafts edge the panel at both sides.

The running heads read "LE MOYEN-AGE ET LA RENAISSANCE." and "AMEUBLEMENT CIVIL." Beneath the image are the credits "Feu Willemin del.", "Chromolith. Lemercier à Paris." and "Kellerhoven, lith.", and below the caption "F. Séré direxit". The caption translates as: Panel of a carved wooden chest, belonging to Mr Vitel. The word feu in the draughtsman's credit means "the late", so the drawing was by Willemin, who had died before the plate was published.

Le Moyen Âge et la Renaissance was published in Paris in five volumes between 1848 and 1851. Paul Lacroix, who also wrote as the Bibliophile Jacob, edited the text, and Ferdinand Séré directed the illustrations, which is what the line "F. Séré direxit" on the plates records. The work surveys the customs, trades, sciences, arts and literature of Europe from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance, and its plates reproduce furniture, metalwork, ceramics, manuscripts and other objects from public and private collections of the time. The plates are chromolithographs, printed in color from a series of stones rather than colored by hand. This plate comes from the fourth volume, issued in 1851.

The single profile head in its wreath gives the plate a strong, simple composition that frames well on its own.

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