In that work, which consists of a broad beige field covered with a mix of ropy skeins, pronounced splatters, and variously emphatic and doodling gestures in predominantly black, red, and white paint, and which was painted in the course of one afternoon on April 25, 1954 (for the rapidly approaching Salon de Mai), Mathieu had set himself the goal of "reconstructing on canvas the decisive 13th-century conflict between the armies of the King of France and Emperor
Otto IV." (2) An ancestor of the painter's, Mathieu de Montmorency, had played a key role in the battle, and it was that figure Mathieu chose to interpret as he painted, donning an idiosyncratic version of medieval dress: black silk costume, white cloth helmet and calf straps, and battle-ready boots.
Baldwin's study, by contrast, offers a dense but persuasive analysis of Renart's direction of his romances towards those sympathetic to the Welf candidate for the German imperial throne, Emperor
Otto IV of Brunswick, in the crisis of 1197-1217.