Carved Wooden Chest, Vitel Collection, Antique Print, 1851

This is an original antique chromolithograph, printed in colors, from Le Moyen Âge et la Renaissance, lettered "COFFRE EN BOIS SCULPTÉ, (XVe SIÈCLE) Appartenant à Mr Vitel, à Paris." A single carved chest is shown from the front, filling the image, printed in olive gold and brown with cream highlights. The front is divided into three round arches on columns with carved capitals. Each arch frames a portrait bust in a plain roundel, at the left a helmeted bearded man, in the center a young man in a cap and at the right a woman in a hood, all set in scrolling foliage. Above the arches run garlands, masks, putti and winged dragons, and at the lower right two putti flank a vase. The chest stands on a plain molded base cut away into feet.

The running heads read "LE MOYEN-AGE ET LA RENAISSANCE" and "AMEUBLEMENT CIVIL." Beneath the image are the credits "Ferd. Séré del.", "Chromolith. Lemercier à Paris." and "Kellerhoven, lith." The caption translates as: Carved wooden chest (fifteenth century), belonging to Mr Vitel, in Paris. A further panel from a chest in the same collection appears on a separate plate of the work.

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 broad, balanced composition suits a landscape frame and hangs well above a piece of furniture or with other furniture plates.

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