The Prophet Ezekiel, Byzantine Psalter Miniature, Antique Print, 1849
€ 270
Original antique · The actual sheet photographed · Certificate of authenticity on request · Sold unframed · Worldwide shipping from € 15 (rates)
Date
1849
Mapmaker / artist
Kellerhoven (draughtsman and lithographer)
Publisher
Administration, 5 rue du Pont-de-Lodi, Paris (chromolithographed by Lemercier, Paris)
Technique
Chromolithograph
Coloring
Printed color
Sheet size
28 × 21 cm (11.0 × 8.3 in)
Condition
Good
Reference
BG-12228-2-19
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.
Condition
Even age toning. Marked handling soiling along the bottom, right and top edges. A few small foxing spots in the margin. All four corners complete.
About this sheet
Two robed figures against a flat gold ground, one seated and wrapped in violet, the other standing with an arm raised. The sheet is lettered as tenth century Greek work, the prophet Ezekiel receiving inspiration during the night, a miniature taken from the Psalter with Commentaries numbered Greek 139 in the Bibliotheque nationale de Paris. The drawing of the bare feet and the fall of the drapery is classical and quite unlike anything else in this volume.
The plate belongs to the second volume of Lacroix and Sere's Le Moyen Age et la Renaissance, Paris, 1849, a work that set out to describe the manners, trades, sciences, letters and fine arts of Europe between the fall of Rome and the end of the sixteenth century. Each sheet was drawn from the original object or manuscript and printed in chromolithography, a process still new in 1849 and here used with unusual richness.
The Paris Psalter is the most famous Byzantine manuscript in France and the touchstone of what historians call the Macedonian renaissance, when Constantinople returned deliberately to antique models. A buyer of Greek or Orthodox material will know it. The gold ground makes the sheet glow under a picture light and it hangs particularly well in a dark room. The sheet is also one of only two plates in the volume drawn from a Greek rather than a Latin manuscript, which gives it a place of its own in any group hung from this lot. Kellerhoven drew and lithographed it himself, which is uncommon here and shows in the quality of the line.
Even age toning. Marked handling soiling along the bottom, right and top edges. A few small foxing spots in the margin. All four corners complete.
This is an original antique print, not a modern reproduction. This item is sold unframed. Any framed or interior images are shown for presentation and inspiration only, unless the listing explicitly states that the item is sold framed.
