Old Age and Poverty, Roman de la Rose, Antique Chromolithograph, 1849

Two small arched miniatures side by side, each showing a single figure standing in a niche of gray stonework with a strip of green garden and a flowering hedge behind. The figure at the left is a woman in blue leaning on a stick, labeled in red Gothic letters Vieillesse, and the one at the right is a ragged figure in a hooded cloak labeled Povvrete. The sheet is lettered as fifteenth century French work, miniatures from the Roman de la Rose, manuscript of the British Museum.

Paul Lacroix, the bibliophile who wrote under the name Le Bibliophile Jacob, and the artist Ferdinand Sere produced Le Moyen Age et la Renaissance in Paris between 1848 and 1851. The present sheet is from Tome Second of 1849. The volume is remembered for the quality of its chromolithography, much of it printed by Lemercier of the rue de Seine, and for the care with which its draughtsmen copied originals that in several cases have since been damaged or lost.

The Roman de la Rose is the most copied secular poem of the Middle Ages and its personified vices and virtues are the ancestors of every allegorical figure painted since. Old Age and Poverty make a pointed, melancholy pair on one sheet. The British Museum provenance adds a name that English speaking buyers recognize, and the horizontal format hangs easily.

Even age toning. Marked handling soiling along the bottom, left and right edges. A few small foxing spots in the margin. All four corners complete.

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