The Printer Valère Maxime Presented to King Louis XI
1860
Medium
Etching and drypoint with burnishing in warm black on grayish ivory chine, laid down on ivory laid paper
Dimensions
Image: 17.9 × 20 cm (7 1/16 × 7 7/8 in.); Plate: 17.9 × 20 cm (7 1/16 × 7 7/8 in.); Primary support: 21.6 × 24.4 cm (8 9/16 × 9 5/8 in.); Secondary support: 25.2 × 27 cm (9 15/16 × 10 11/16 in.)
Classification
etching
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
28793
Art Historical Context
In the intricate etching *The Printer Valère Maxime Presented to King Louis XI* (1860), French artist Charles Meryon captures a pivotal moment from 15th-century France. The scene imagines the printer of the ancient Roman author Valerius Maximus's moral anecdotes being presented to King Louis XI, a monarch famed for his cunning patronage of the arts and early printing innovations. Created amid 19th-century France's etching revival, Meryon's work reflects Romantic fascination with medieval history and the dawn of the printed word, bridging antiquity with Renaissance humanism. Meryon, a master o...
About the Artist
Charles Meryon · 1821–1868
Charles Meryon, born on November 23, 1821, in Paris, was the illegitimate son of English physician Dr. Charles Lewis Meryon and dancer Pierre-Narcisse Chaspoux (stage name Narcisse Gentil) at the Paris Opéra. His half-sister Fanny, from his mother's prior relationship with Viscount Lowther, remained in contact after their mother's death in 1838. Raised partly outside Paris before attending Pension...