Gaul and Early France, Pair of Antique Hand Colored Prints, circa 1882

This is a set of two original antique hand-colored wood engravings, sold together as one lot, from Augustin Challamel's La France et les Francais a travers les siecles, Paris, circa 1882. The sheets are, in order: Laborers, Lord and Serfs of Merovingian Gaul; Gaulish Dwelling, Chariot and Harness. Field laborers at the plow and the spade on the left, a lord in a blue cloak riding out to hawk with his bird on his fist at the center, and bondmen of the estate at the right, the whole group drawn from a Merovingian miniature in the Bibliotheque nationale. A sheet of Gaulish antiquities: a thatched round dwelling, a woman and a peasant taken from the Antonine column and a Louvre relief, a two wheeled chariot from a relief at Dijon, a rich farmer from a statuette at Saint-Germain, and a set of harness.

The plate belongs to La France et les Francais a travers les siecles by Augustin Challamel, published in Paris by F. Roy at 185 rue Saint-Antoine about 1882. It comes from the suite headed Costumes civils et militaires des Francais a travers les siecles, which runs through the work and illustrates French civil and military dress from Gaul to the nineteenth century. Much of the original drawing was done by Edmond Lechevalier-Chevignard, working from manuscripts, tapestries and paintings named on the sheets themselves. The plates of this suite are headed Costumes civils et militaires des Francais a travers les siecles across the top of the sheet, numbered at the lower left and signed F. Roy, editeur at the lower right, with the engraver's name cut small into the lower margin of the block on many of them. The ground is left plain so that the figures carry the whole weight of the design.

This is one of the earliest plates in the series and one of the very few nineteenth century images that attempts the dress of the fifth to seventh centuries from a manuscript source rather than from imagination. Every element here is referenced to a named monument on the sheet itself, which makes it one of the most scrupulous plates in the series and a genuinely useful record of what Gaulish material culture was believed to look like in 1882. They are two original sheets sold together, and the set is never split. Hung together in matching frames the sheets read as one piece of wall rather than as separate prints, and the uniform plate size makes an even line above a sideboard, a bed or a run of stairs.

Light uneven toning, browner toward the edges. Marked handling soiling along the edges of both sheets. Scattered foxing in the margins of both sheets. Slight wear at the corners of both sheets.

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