Three Twelfth Century Miniatures of the Burgundian Library, 1849

A set of three original antique chromolithographs of Romanesque miniatures, sold together and not separately. All three are lettered as twelfth century work, all three were drawn by the Comte Horace de Viel-Castel and lithographed by Kellerhoven, and all three were printed by Lemercier of the rue de Seine for Lacroix and Sere's Le Moyen Age et la Renaissance, Paris, 1849. The manuscripts they come from belonged to the Library of Burgundy in Brussels, the collection assembled by the dukes of Burgundy that is now the heart of the Royal Library of Belgium. They are three original sheets sold together as one lot, and the set is never split.

One sheet shows a group of standing apostles in orange, green and white on a gold diapered ground, reaching toward a central figure whose wounded feet are drawn with particular care. A second sets a bearded pope and a tonsured scribe under a domed canopy on a ground of lapis blue, lettered as the Dialogues of Pope Gregory from the Royal Library of Burgundy at Brussels. The third places a winged angel carrying a branch before a woman in a dark red mantle, under a gold canopy within a red and green frame.

Le Moyen Age et la Renaissance was issued in Paris between 1848 and 1851 in five volumes under the literary direction of Paul Lacroix and the artistic direction of Ferdinand Sere. This plate belongs to the second volume, dated 1849. Its chromolithographs were drawn from the originals by artists sent into the libraries and collections of France, Belgium and Germany, and printed by Lemercier of Paris or by Engelmann et Graf. The twelfth century is the moment when medieval painting is at its most severe and its most inventive, with figures reduced to pattern, drapery drawn in looping white lines and grounds of flat gold, blue and green. These three sheets catch it at full strength. They share a size, an upright format, a draughtsman and a frame, so they hang as a set of three without adjustment, and the Burgundian provenance means something particular to Belgian and Dutch buyers.

Light uneven toning, browner towards the edges. Marked handling soiling along the edges of all three sheets. Light foxing in the margins of one of the three sheets. All corners complete on every sheet.

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