Renaud de Montauban, Medieval Romance Miniature, Antique Print, 1849

A crowded interior from one of the great chivalric romances of medieval France. The miniature is taken from a manuscript of the romance of Renaud de Montauban in the Bibliotheque de l'Arsenal in Paris, and it shows a company of courtiers in parti-colored hose and furred gowns gathered in a vaulted chamber, with a seated king at the right and a gaming board on the floor. The painter of the original gave his figures the dress of his own day rather than of Charlemagne's, which is exactly what makes these miniatures useful: the costume is fifteenth century to the last button.

The sheet comes from Le Moyen Age et la Renaissance, the great illustrated survey of medieval and Renaissance life edited by Paul Lacroix and Ferdinand Sere and published in Paris from the Administration at 5 rue du Pont-de-Lodi. This is Tome Second, dated 1849 on its own title page. The colored drawings were made by A. Rivaud and his colleagues and printed in chromolithography by the Paris house of Lemercier, then the finest color printer in Europe.

Renaud de Montauban, the tale of the four sons of Aymon and their horse Bayard, was among the most widely copied stories in medieval Europe and survived in chapbook form into the nineteenth century. A sheet like this one hangs well in a library or a study, where the density of figures and the strong reds and greens reward looking at close range. It also sits comfortably in a group with other miniatures from the same volume, since the plates share a format and a palette.

Even age toning. Marked handling soiling along the bottom, left and right edges. Scattered light foxing in the margin. All four corners complete.

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