Traité de Guérande, 1365

This illustration by Adolphe Rouargue depicts the Treaty of Guérande of 1365, which brought the first phase of the Breton War of Succession to an end. The composition presents a diplomatic and political episode connected with the recognition of John IV as Duke of Brittany, in the context of the rivalry between the houses of Blois and Montfort and the intervention of the kingdom of France. Produced around 1844 for Jules Janin’s La Bretagne, the image is not a direct witness to the medieval event but a nineteenth-century historical reconstruction intended to give visual form to major episodes of Breton history. It belongs to a historicizing mode of illustration attentive to dynastic memory, foundational treaties, and the narration of the political past.