The Maid in Armor on Horseback (Joan of Arc series: III)

Louis Maurice Boutet de Monvel

National Gallery of Art

Two by two, monks wearing black and white, hooded robes lead a procession headed by an armored woman on horseback, Joan of Arc, on a rutted, sand-brown road in this horizontal painting. Most of the monks fold their hands at their waist, and the others tuck their hands into voluminous sleeves. One monk holds a tall gold cross and one a horizontal forked banner decorated with two angels. Another pair of monks in pecan-brown, hooded robes walk beside Joan’s butterscotch-brown horse. Joan wears a pale, silvery helmet and full armor, and she holds her fingertips together in prayer as she looks up. The horse has a brilliant blue saddle and collar. A young man wearing marigold orange, light blue, and black leads the horse by the bridle. More armored men on horseback behind Joan hold red, blue, or striped lances vertically by their sides. Dozens of men line the far side of the road, kneeling and holding up tall, blade-tipped halberds. Countless men on horseback line the horizon in the distance, which comes two-thirds of the way up the composition. The artist signed the painting in gray in the lower left, “M. Boutet de Monvel.”