Watercolor And Gouache Over Pencil Lines In The Troubadour Style Of The First Third Of The 19th Century

A watercolor and gouache over pencil lines in the troubadour style showing a priest dressed in a white surplice, behind his lectern, saying mass before an assembly of women in black seated in stalls, inside a Gothic chapel.
The inverted boat-hull-shaped framework of the building, treated in perspective, leads the eye towards the large stained-glass window which closes the scene, while the side walls are punctuated on one side by bays adorned, it seems, with stained glass, and on the other by symmetrical false windows.
This type of representation, known as the Troubadour style or Gothic Revival, coincides with the resurgence of Christian sentiment during the Restoration, which had been heralded as early as 1802 by the publication of Chateaubriand's *The Genius of Christianity*. Chateaubriant's role in promoting edifying painting, sculpture, and literature, often inspired by religion and its associated Gothic style, was considerable.
Is this not precisely what is shown to us here? The devotion of women during Mass, the meticulously depicted Gothic chapel with the striking perspective of the timber frame and the shimmering stained glass.
The watercolor is presented under its original glass, in its original black and gold wooden frame, with a typically Charles X apple-green mat highlighted with a gold border.
First third of the 19th century.
Good condition. Some chips to the frame.
35 cm x 22 cm (sight size). 48.5 cm x 32.5 cm (framed).