An Early Modern Child’s Drawing, in Melusine

That’s GREAT. I’m pretty sure this drawing’s escaped (for now) the attention of Erik Kwakkel, that indefatigable emissary for medieval manuscripts, though he has blogged on doodles, and even children’s doodles.

Please let me know if you’ve seen this before, and where. Google searches for child drawing Melusine or l’enfant dessin Melusine get me nothing useful. For now, we’ll just observe that this drawing, dating from, I guess, the late 16th or early 17th century, is all too appropriate in a story so concerned with lineage.

And, uh, dinosaurs and maces.

(parenthetically, because I’m far outside my expertise here, but I’ve been asked to explain why I think this is a child’s drawing. My stupid response is just that it looks like one. More considered, and even less expertly, I’d say that the elongation of limbs coupled with the enlargement of areas to accommodate detail (in this case, in clothing) that can’t be rendered finely with a child’s typically gross motor skills coupled (tripled?) with the complete indifference to the image’s interaction with the text just says child to me. But it could be Paul Klee too! If this touches on your field, hazard a guess in comments, please.)