Gold on Purple, Three Carolingian Manuscript Plates, 1849

A set of three original antique chromolithographs of the most luxurious books the early Middle Ages produced, sold together and not separately. All three are from the Manuscrits section of Lacroix and Sere's Le Moyen Age et la Renaissance, Paris, 1849, drawn by A. Racinet and printed by Lemercier, and all three reproduce writing in gold and silver laid on grounds of imperial purple, crimson and ochre. The sources are lettered on the sheets and include the Psalter of Saint Germain des Pres, three Carolingian Bibles of the Bibliotheque nationale and an eleventh century German manuscript. They are three original sheets sold together as one lot, and the set is never split.

One sheet carries four panels of gold and silver writing on grounds of imperial purple, named on the plate as the Psalter of Saint Germain des Pres of the sixth century and three ninth century books of the Bibliotheque nationale. A second gives two lines of black and gold capitals on ochre, the Easter morning gospel from an eleventh century German manuscript, with a tall interlaced initial standing above the text. The third is the boldest: white letters cut out of a deep crimson ground sown with dots, their forms locked one inside another, taken from a seventh century Latin Bible, with initials of the Mazarin Bible above.

This is one of the chromolithographic plates of Le Moyen Age et la Renaissance, second volume, Paris, 1849, edited by Paul Lacroix with Ferdinand Sere as artistic director. The work was among the first large French publications to rely on color lithography throughout, and its plates were drawn directly from manuscripts, textiles, armor and goldsmiths' work in the public collections of Paris, Brussels and the German cities. Purple parchment was dyed for emperors and for books made as imperial gifts, and nothing else in medieval book production looks remotely like it. These are the richest of the palaeographic plates in the volume and the three that work hardest as decoration: gold and white lettering on aubergine and deep crimson, in three upright sheets of one size. They are made for a dark painted wall and they should be hung together.

Light uneven toning, browner towards the edges. Marked handling soiling along the edges of all three sheets. Light foxing in the margins of two of the three sheets. Slight wear at the corners of one of the three sheets.

These are original antique prints, not modern reproductions. This item is sold unframed.