Framed and on the wall
Frame and rooms are illustrations of how the print could look; the description says what is included.
Queens of Medieval France, Pair of Antique Costume Prints, circa 1882
€260
$290 · £215
Original print, not a reproduction.
Ships worldwide from the Netherlands, flat or rolled, insured and tracked. 14-day returns.
- Date
- circa 1882
- Sheet size
- 11.2 × 7.9 in (28.5 × 20 cm)
- Technique
- Woodcut
- Coloring
- Original hand color
- Condition
- Good. 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. Shallow nicks along an edge of both sheets.
- Wardrobe
- Court & couture
- Era
- 1870 to 1900, Bustle
- Stock no.
- BG-13382-34
What the condition grades mean
- Excellent
- Bright and clean, with no faults worth mentioning.
- Very good
- Only light signs of age, such as faint toning.
- Good
- Normal signs of age for a sheet of this period: toning, some foxing, small marks or neat old repairs.
- Fair
- Clear faults such as staining, tears or repairs, priced to match.
Every fault we see is written in the condition note, and the whole sheet is shown uncropped in the photos.
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: Madeleine de France, Princess of Viana; Isabeau de Baviere, Queen of Charles VI. Madeleine de France, princess of Viana, standing in a tall conical hennin with a trailing veil, a close bodice and a wide fur banded skirt, lettered 1460 and drawn with the long neckline and shaved brow of the period. Isabeau de Baviere, queen of Charles the Sixth, in a crown and a jeweled ermine mantle with an enormous trained robe of gold and violet brocade carried behind her by two attendant ladies in horned headdresses.
The engraving comes from the costume suite of Augustin Challamel's La France et les Francais a travers les siecles, F. Roy, editeur, Paris, circa 1882. Almost every plate in the series cites its source in the caption, a miniature in the Bibliotheque nationale, a tapestry, a picture in the Louvre or a sheet from the Gaignieres collection, and that habit of citation is what lifts the series above the invented costume books of the same decade. The technique is wood engraving, cut on the end grain so that the block could be locked up with the type and printed together with the text, and the color is applied by hand afterwards over the printed line. The washes in this suite are flat and confident, laid in a small number of strong tones, and they cross the engraved outline here and there in the way that only hand work does.
Madeleine was a daughter of Charles the Seventh and became regent of Navarre, and the hennin she wears here is the headdress that fixes the popular image of the late Middle Ages more than any other garment. Isabeau is the queen whose signature on the treaty of Troyes handed France to the English, and the spreading brocade train in this plate is among the most decorative single images in the entire series. They are two original sheets sold together, and the set is never split. Framed as a set in plain wood or in gilt, the sheets give a hallway, a study or a dining room a deliberate and finished line that a single print cannot.
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. Shallow nicks along an edge of both sheets.
This is an original antique print, not a modern reproduction. This item is sold unframed.
