Romanesque Initial from an Eleventh Century Bible, Antique Print, 1849

A single initial filling the whole sheet, drawn as a cage of gold straps that plait and loop across a ground of deep brown and crimson, with dragons and leaf terminals breaking out at every turn. The sheet is lettered as eleventh century work from the Biblia Sacra, first volume, number 8, in the Bibliotheque nationale de Paris. The gold is printed from its own stone and the strapwork is modeled so that it appears to pass over and under itself.

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.

This is the most purely ornamental sheet in the volume and the one that works hardest as decoration. One large initial, centered, in gold and dark red, needs no explanation to anybody and sits as comfortably in a modern interior as in a paneled library. It holds a wall on its own as a single piece rather than as part of a group.

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

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