[4] However, the painting's royalist theme so angered Edmond Turquet, then the Deputy Secretary of State for Fine Art, that it was removed just before the private viewing and moved to the premises of the newspaper Le Figaro.

[4] Drawn with a strong line and clear, harmonious colors, his illustrations drew critical praise even though he himself was disappointed in the quality of the reproductions, which had been done by zincotype, a then-new photoengraving process.

[4][7] As one critic put it: Boutet de Monvel's full-page illustrations have a nobility and grandeur akin to the great church frescoes of the Renaissance.

Their pleasingly flat rendering combined with a sophisticated use of design elements...owe a debt to the Japanese prints so popular in the artist's day.

[4] At the World's Fair of 1900, he received a gold medal for a panel entitled Joan at the Court of Chinon that was part of a commission for a new basilica in Donrémy.

[4][7] It was one of a set of five panels, but the other four were never finished, though a smaller-scale version was completed for senator William A. Clark, who donated it to the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington.

His style has been praised for its lack of unnecessary detail,[5] and it has been noted that his images provide "a revelation of a subject which the writer has treated only in a fragmentary and superficial manner.

"[5] He has been ranked alongside Kate Greenaway and Randolph Caldecott as a leading figure of the 19th century's golden era of children's book illustration.

[7] Boutet de Monvel was a mentor of the Dutch illustrator Henriette Willebeek le Mair, who studied with him informally over a number of years.