An architectural drawing of a tower
c. 1500-20
Southwestern France, Toulouse?
72 x 27 cm; brown ink on laid paper, backed with a modern paper support. Schematic ruling (in chalk?).
This extraordinary architectural drawing for a monumental tower is the only known medieval design for a building to have survived from Southern France. It can be added to a small handful of architectural drawings that survive from late-medieval France, including a drawing of a church porch from Normandy (now at the Cloisters), the façade drawing by Pierre Montoloys from Clermont-Ferrand Cathedral, and the Rouen Crossing Tower (now at the Museum of Fine Art, Houston.
Published
Etienne Hamon, ‘Le dessin d’architecture gothique en France: perspectives pour la constitution d’un corpus’, in Bulletin monumental 179-2 (2021), pp. 99-108.