morgauseoforkney: ‘Alain Chartier’, by Edmund Blair Leighton, 1903 This painting depicts

morgauseoforkney:‘Alain Chartier’, by Edmund Blair Leighton, 1903This painting depicts a well-known legend about the fifteenth century French poet Alain Chartier and Margaret of Scotland, Dauphine of France. Margaret was notable for her deep love of poetry, being at the centre of a small circle of like-minded literary lovers at the French court. Composing ballads was such a passion for her that she is said to have spent many nights writing until sunrise, which followers of her husband later tried to claim led to her poor health and early death in 1445, at the age of twenty. Alain Chartier had in fact once been sent to the court of James I of Scotland to take part in the negotiations for Margaret’s marriage,but he is chiefly famous for his eloquent poetry and political writings during the Hundred Years’ War, such as the Quadrilogue Invectif. Margaret Stewart, along with her ladies, is supposed to have come across him sleeping one day and impulsively kissed him. When her ladies asked why she should kiss such an old and ugly fellow, she answered that it was not the man she kissed, but the lips which produced such beautiful poetry. In fact this event seems rather unlikely to have taken place, given the lifetimes of the two protagonists, and a variant is told about other  women in French history, but it does give a nod to Margaret’s well-known love of poetry, and perhaps also reflects her occasionally unorthodox behaviour, which wasn’t always dignified for a princess. Unfortunately, after her death her husband had all of her writings destroyed, but if nothing else at least knowledge of her love for poetry has come down to us, whether preserved in both contemporary accounts or Edwardian paintings.(Even though it’s not historical though, I still think it’s a lovely painting and obviously can’t pass up the opportunity to post pictures of either Chartier or Margaret) -- source link
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