Moorish Spanish Saddle, Royal Armory of Madrid, Antique Print, 1851

This is an original antique chromolithograph, printed in colors, from Le Moyen Âge et la Renaissance, lettered "SELLE MAURESQUE ESPAGNOLE. (Armeria reale de Madrid.)" A single shaped saddle piece fills the sheet, drawn flat, with a high curved top at the left and a deep notch cut into the right side. The central field is salmon pink, covered with olive green and gray arabesque scrolls, split leaves and small rosettes. Around it runs a wide border of gray green compartments, each holding a red flower among green leaves, separated by red lozenges, and the whole is outlined in dark brown with a thin red edge.

The running head "LE MOYEN-AGE ET LA RENAISSANCE." is at the upper left, and the section head "SELLERIE." (saddlery) is at the upper right. Beneath the image are the credits "Ferdinand Séré, del.", "Chromolith. Lemercier à Paris." and "Regamey, lith.", and below the caption "F. Séré direxit". The caption translates as: Moorish Spanish saddle. (Royal Armory of Madrid.) The plate was drawn by Séré himself and put on stone by Regamey.

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 flat pattern and warm salmon, red and green make the sheet as decorative as a textile design, and it frames well alone.

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