France CASTLE ROYAL CHATEAU DE BLOIS RENAISSANCE GOTHIC 1865 Art Print Engraving

Description: THE BATHS OF CATHERINE DE MEDICIS AT BLOIS Artist: T. Allom ____________ Engraver: J. Sands Note: the title in the table above is printed below the engraving AN ANTIQUE STEEL ENGRAVING MADE IN THE 1860s !! ITEM IS OVER 130 YEARS OLD! VERY OLD WORLD! INCREDIBLE DETAIL! FROM THE ORIGINAL DESCRIPTION: Among all these chateaus, that of Blois, where the court was then staying, is one on which the magnificence of the houses of Orleans and of Valois has placed its brilliant sign-manual,--making it the most interesting of all for historians, archaeologists, and Catholics. It was at the time of which we write completely isolated. The town, enclosed by massive walls supported by towers, lay below the fortress,--for the chateau served, in fact, as fort and pleasure-house. Above the town, with its blue-tiled, crowded roofs extending then, as now, from the river to the crest of the hill which commands the right bank, lies a triangular plateau, bounded to the west by a streamlet, which in these days is of no importance, for it flows beneath the town; but in the fifteenth century, so say historians, it formed quite a deep ravine, of which there still remains a sunken road, almost an abyss, between the suburbs of the town and the chateau. It was on this plateau, with a double exposure to the north and south, that the counts of Blois built, in the architecture of the twelfth century, a castle where the famous Thibault de Tircheur, Thibault le Vieux, and others held a celebrated court. In those days of pure fuedality, in which the king was merely /primus inter pares/ (to use the fine expression of a king of Poland), the counts of Champagne, the counts of Blois, those of Anjou, the simple barons of Normandie, the dukes of Bretagne, lived with the splendor of sovereign princes and gave kings to the proudest kingdoms. The Plantagenets of Anjou, the Lusignans of Poitou, the Roberts of Normandie, maintained with a bold hand the royal races, and sometimes simple knights like du Glaicquin refused the purple, preferring the sword of a connetable. When the Crown annexed the county of Blois to its domain, Louis XII., who had a liking for this residence (perhaps to escape Plessis of sinister memory), built at the back of the first building another building, facing east and west, which connected the chateau of the counts of Blois with the rest of the old structures, of which nothing now remains but the vast hall in which the States-general were held under Henri III. Before he became enamoured of Chambord, Francois I. wished to complete the chateau of Blois by adding two other wings, which would have made the structure a perfect square. But Chambord weaned him from Blois, where he built only one wing, which in his time and that of his grandchildren was the only inhabited part of the chateau. This third building erected by Francois I. is more vast and far more decorated than the Louvre, the chateau of Henri II. It is in the style of architecture now called Renaissance, and presents the most fantastic features of that style. Therefore, at a period when a strict and jealous architecture ruled construction, when the Middle Ages were not even considered, at a time when literature was not as clearly welded to art as it is now, La Fontaine said of the chateau de Blois, in his hearty, good-humored way: "The part that Francois I. built, if looked at from the outside, pleased me better than all the rest; there I saw numbers of little galleries, little windows, little balconies, little ornamentations without order or regularity, and they make up a grand whole which I like." The chateau of Blois had, therefore, the merit of representing three orders of architecture, three epochs, three systems, three dominions. Perhaps there is no other royal residence that can compare with it in that respect. This immense structure presents to the eye in one enclosure, round one courtyard, a complete and perfect image of that grand presentation of the manners and customs and life of nations which is called Architecture. At the moment when Christophe was to visit the court, that part of the adjacent land which in our day is covered by a fourth palace, built seventy years later (by Gaston, the rebellious brother of Louis XIII., then exiled to Blois), was an open space containing pleasure-grounds and hanging gardens, picturesquely placed among the battlements and unfinished turrets of Francois I.'s chateau. These gardens communicated, by a bridge of a fine, bold construction (which the old men of Blois may still remember to have seen demolished) with a pleasure-ground on the other side of the chateau, which, by the lay of the land, was on the same level. The nobles attached to the Court of Anne de Bretagne, or those of that province who came to solicit favors, or to confer with the queen as to the fate and condition of Brittany, awaited in this pleasure-ground the opportunity for an audience, either at the queen's rising, or at her coming out to walk. Consequently, history has given the name of "Perchoir aux Bretons" to this piece of ground, which, in our day, is the fruit-garden of a worthy bourgeois, and forms a projection into the place des Jesuites. The latter place was included in the gardens of this beautiful royal residence, which had, as we have said, its upper and its lower gardens. Not far from the place des Jesuites may still be seen a pavilion built by Catherine de' Medici, where, according to the historians of Blois, warm mineral baths were placed for her to use. This detail enables us to trace the very irregular disposition of the gardens, which went up or down according to the undulations of the ground, becoming extremely intricate around the chateau,--a fact which helped to give it strength, and caused, as we shall see, the discomfiture of the Duc de Guise. ABOUT THE ARTIST: Thomas Allom (1804-1872) was born in London, England on 13th March 1804. He was articled to Francis Goodwin, an architect in 1819. He was to become a founder member of the R.I.B.A. (Royal Institute of British Architects - which is still the premier institution today). He is best know for his topographical drawings, so many of which were engraved on steel & appeared in many of the travel books of the time. He travelled extensively, not just in the UK & Europe, but further afield, covering such countries as Turkey & China. Collections of his work can be found in the British Museum and the Victoria & Albert Museum. SIZE: Image size is 5 inches by 7 inches. Print size is 9 1/2 inches by 12 1/2 inches including white borders. CONDITION: Condition is excellent. Bright and clean. Blank on reverse. SHIPPING: Buyers to pay shipping/handling, domestic orders receives priority mail, international orders receive regular mail. Please note: the terms used in our auctions for engraving, heliogravure, lithograph, print, plate, photogravure etc. are ALL prints on paper, NOT blocks of steel or wood. "ENGRAVINGS", the term commonly used for these paper prints, were the most common method in the 1700s and 1800s for illustrating old books, and these paper prints or "engravings" were inserted into the book with a tissue guard frontis, usually on much thicker quality rag stock paper, although many were also printed and issued as loose stand alone prints. So this auction is for an antique paper print(s), probably from an old book, of very high quality and usually on very thick rag stock paper. EXTREMELY RARE IN THIS EXCELLENT CONDITION!

Price: 15.99 USD

Location: New Providence, New Jersey

End Time: 2024-04-19T14:52:05.000Z

Shipping Cost: 7.95 USD