Lion and Horse Drinking Vessel after a Sixteenth Century Design, 1851

This is an original antique chromolithograph, printed in olive gold and bronze tones, lettered "VASE A BOIRE. d'après un dessin du XVIe Siècle, appartenant à Mr C. Becker." A single fantastic drinking vessel fills the page. A rearing horse with a flowing mane and a knotted, tasseled tail is seized from behind by a lion, whose forepaws grip the horse's neck and back and whose long tail arches high above the group. The horse is braced on the shell of a large tortoise, which forms the base, set on a patch of grassy ground, with the tortoise's whiskered, bearded head turned up at the front.

The running head reads "LE MOYEN-AGE ET LA RENAISSANCE." and "OBJETS DIVERS." (miscellaneous objects). The credits are "Ferdinand Séré del.", "Chromolith. Lemercier à Paris" and "Kellerhoven lith.", with "F. Séré direxit" at the foot. In English the caption reads: Drinking vessel, after a drawing of the sixteenth century belonging to Mr. C. Becker. The plate therefore records a design on paper rather than a surviving vessel, and it is the drawing that is lettered as Becker's property.

Paul Lacroix, known also by his pen name the Bibliophile Jacob, edited Le Moyen Âge et la Renaissance with Ferdinand Séré as director of the plates. The five volumes appeared in Paris between 1848 and 1851 and cover the customs, crafts, sciences and arts of medieval and Renaissance Europe, each chapter illustrated after objects then held in public and private collections. The present plate comes from the fourth volume of 1851.

The plate can be framed on its own or hung in a small group with other plates from the work.

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