I’m trying to find if the fleurdelisé was used prior to being the official Quebec’s flag (1948) but I can’t seem to find much.
All I could find about this painting is that it was made by Marek Szysko so maybe it was modernized a little(?)
https://fr.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fleur_de_lys
It first appeared in the 8th century in the Frankish empire and it was adopted as a specific symbol of french royalty in the 12th century. In France it only went out of use somewhat after the french revolution in 1789, so more than a century after Quebec was conquered by England, which means that Quebec was colonized by the french when the fleur de lys was still in wide use.
Yes I know about the Fleur de Lys, the fleurdelisé is the specific name given to the Quebec flag that has a representation of the Fleur de Lys in each corners. That’s the flag seen in this painting.
My bad, I thought it was a different spelling of the old Fleur.
My bet is on an anachronistic mistake with the flag, happens all the time. It is in style of historical regimental flags, but I think a research error is more likely than it being the actual regimental flag. There won’t have been many special royal (with Fleur de Lys) regiments, so it would surprise me if we couldn’t easily find that particular flag.
A historical chart of regimental flags, made in 1771, with the year that each flag was created: http://web.archive.org/web/20071028170126/http://www.cg78.fr/archives/img/db/seriea/hd/sa00110.jpg
An article on those flags and others: https://www.crwflags.com/fotw/flags/fr^r_mon.html
Plenty of white crosses, plenty of Fleur de Lys, but no flag that is a proper match…
The closest I get is this family coat of arms, which is probably more a coincidence than anything else: https://man8rove.com/fr/blason/dzcmzn9-desmier-alias-desmiers-alias-dexmier
Thanks for the thorough research! Considering it was painted quite recently my guess was also a simple mistake. I was really surprise seeing the flag used is such a historical context
May be a mistake, but I assumed it was a regimental flag or the like.
