Plate 7b, from Turnier Buch Herzogs Wilhelm des Vierten von Bayern (Tournament Book of Duke Wilhelm IV of Bavaria)

Clemens Senefelder · 1817

Medium

Lithograph in black and metallic pigments, with pen and ink retouchings, on ivory wove paper

Original size

Sheet (trimmed; irregular): 35 × 35.5 cm (13 13/16 × 14 in.)

Currently held

Art Institute of Chicago

Movement

Neoclassicism

Plate 7b from the Tournament Book of Duke Wilhelm IV of Bavaria is a striking example of early lithography pushed to its decorative limits — black ink and metallic pigments working together to evoke the pageantry of sixteenth-century Bavarian court life. Clemens Senefelder produced this work in 1817 as part of a lithographic reproduction of a Renaissance tournament manuscript, a project that showcased the young medium's remarkable capacity for detail. His use of metallic pigments alongside pen and ink retouchings was an attempt to approximate the gold leaf and fine draughtsmanship of the original — a technically ambitious hybrid of printmaking and hand-finishing that places the work somewhere between mechanical reproduction and artist's proof. The result reads less like a facsimile and more like an artifact in its own right. The Tournament Book project was among the earliest serious efforts to use lithography for scholarly and cultural preservation, appearing just two decades after Alois Senefelder — Clemens's father — first developed the process. Our hand-painted oil reproduction translates the composition's commanding geometry and heraldic precision into pigment on canvas, preserving the graphic boldness of Senefelder's lithograph while giving the image the warmth and physical presence that print alone cannot deliver.