The Assyrian empire was already ancient history when Rome was young, and for most of European civilisation it existed only as a name in scripture and a handful of references in classical texts. This plate, lithographed by Dufour and Lebreton and published by Firmin Didot Frères, Fils et Cie, was produced in the immediate aftermath of those discoveries, when the ornamental vocabulary of ancient Assyria was being documented and disseminated for the first time to a European audience hungry to understand what had been found.
The plate is structured as a comprehensive visual survey of Assyrian ornamental and figurative motifs, drawn from palace wall reliefs, glazed brick panels, ivories, metalwork, and textile patterns recovered from the great sites of the Tigris valley. At the top, two large rectangular panels present figurative scenes on a lapis blue ground: to the left, a magnificent lion strides in profile, powerfully modelled with a spotted coat and open jaws; to the right, two winged genii in ceremonial dress flank a solar disc of the kind associated with the god Ashur, the supreme deity of the Assyrian state. Both panels are bordered by a repeat rosette frieze in white on blue.
The central column is given to the Sacred Tree, one of the most enduring and widespread symbols in all of ancient Near Eastern visual culture. Rendered here as a tall, symmetrical composition of palmette fronds and scrolling branches growing from a stepped base, it appears on Assyrian ivories, seal cylinders, textile borders, and monumental stone reliefs across three centuries of the empire's height. The Sacred Tree was associated with kingship, fertility, and divine protection, and the flanking winged figures or animals that so often accompany it in Assyrian art were understood as its guardians. Here it fills the entire central panel of the plate, its warm cream and red tones set against a rich olive green ground, asserting its importance as the visual and symbolic keystone of the entire composition.
The colour palette throughout, cobalt blue, olive green, terracotta red, warm ochre, and ivory white, is drawn directly from the glazed brick and painted plaster evidence of the excavations and gives the plate a vivid material presence that makes the ancient world feel genuinely close.
Reproduced as a museum-grade archival fine art print on heavyweight cotton-rag paper, every colour field, every fine line, and every specimen detail is preserved with complete fidelity to the original chromolithograph. Hang it in a study, library, or living room where its extraordinary historical depth and graphic richness reward slow, attentive looking. Frame it in deep navy or aged brass and bring one of the oldest and most powerful visual cultures in human history home.
