Lowres TK

Lowres TK

Delacroix

Delacroix
Delacroix
Sébastien Allard is chief curator and director of the
Department of Paintings, Musée du Louvre, Paris.

Côme Fabre is curator of nineteenth-­century French paintings, Sébastien Allard and Côme Fabre
Department of Paintings, Musée du Louvre, Paris.
with contributions by Dominique de Font-Réaulx,
Dominique de Font-­Réaulx is director of the Musée National Michèle Hannoosh, Mehdi Korchane, and Asher Miller
Eugène-­Delacroix, Paris.

Michèle Hannoosh is professor of French, University of

Eugène Delacroix (1798–1863) was one of the towering
Michigan, Ann Arbor.
­figures to emerge in France in the wake of Napoleon. No
Mehdi Korchane is an independent scholar. other artist of the nineteenth century balanced a reverence
for the past with such a strong ambition and spirit of innova­
Asher Miller is associate curator, Department of European
tion. Distinguishing himself from many other talented young
Paintings, The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
artists in Paris, he gained renown in the 1820s for his novel
subject matter, theatrical sense of composition, vibrant palette,
and vigorous painterly technique. His vast production—
including some eight hundred paintings, prints in a variety
of media, and thousands of drawings and pages of writing—
Jacket illustrations: front, detail, Women of Algiers in Their Apartment, won the admira­tion of countless writers and artists, including
1834, cat. 83; back, detail, Self-­Portrait in a Green Vest, ca. 1837, cat. 93 Charles Baudelaire, Paul Cézanne, and Pablo Picasso.
This comprehensive monograph closely examines the
Jacket design by Miko McGinty and Rita Jules full breadth of Delacroix’s career, including his engagement
with the work of his predecessors, his fascina­tion with the
natural world, his interest in Lord Byron and the Greek War
of Independence, and the profound influence of his voyage to
North Africa in 1832. It brings to life his relationships with his
contemporaries, ranging from the painters Pierre Narcisse
Guérin and Antoine Jean Gros to Gustave Courbet, as well as
his exploration of literary, historical, and biblical themes, his
writing in personal journals, and his triumphant exhibition at
the Exposition Universelle of 1855. Richly illustrated and
encompassing the entire range and diversity of his art, from
The Metropolitan Museum of Art grand paintings to intimate drawings, Delacroix illuminates
1000 Fifth Avenue how this intrepid figure changed the course of European
New York, New York 10028 painting by heeding “a call for the liberty of art.”
metmuseum.org

Distributed by Yale University Press,

New Haven and London
yalebooks.com/art 328 pages; 288 illustrations; bibliography; index
yalebooks.co.uk ISBN 978-1-58839-651-8

PRINTED IN ITALY

PRINTED IN ITALY
 Lowres TK
Lowres TK

Delacroix

Delacroix
Delacroix
Sébastien Allard is chief curator and director of the
Department of Paintings, Musée du Louvre, Paris.

Côme Fabre is curator of nineteenth-­century French paintings, Sébastien Allard and Côme Fabre
Department of Paintings, Musée du Louvre, Paris.
with contributions by Dominique de Font-Réaulx,
Dominique de Font-­Réaulx is director of the Musée National Michèle Hannoosh, Mehdi Korchane, and Asher Miller
Eugène-­Delacroix, Paris.

Michèle Hannoosh is professor of French, University of

Eugène Delacroix (1798–1863) was one of the towering
Michigan, Ann Arbor.
­figures to emerge in France in the wake of Napoleon. No
Mehdi Korchane is an independent scholar. other artist of the nineteenth century balanced a reverence
for the past with such a strong ambition and spirit of innova­
Asher Miller is associate curator, Department of European
tion. Distinguishing himself from many other talented young
Paintings, The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
artists in Paris, he gained renown in the 1820s for his novel
subject matter, theatrical sense of composition, vibrant palette,
and vigorous painterly technique. His vast production—
including some eight hundred paintings, prints in a variety
of media, and thousands of drawings and pages of writing—
Jacket illustrations: front, detail, Women of Algiers in Their Apartment, won the admira­tion of countless writers and artists, including
1834, cat. 83; back, detail, Self-­Portrait in a Green Vest, ca. 1837, cat. 93 Charles Baudelaire, Paul Cézanne, and Pablo Picasso.
This comprehensive monograph closely examines the
Jacket design by Miko McGinty and Rita Jules full breadth of Delacroix’s career, including his engagement
with the work of his predecessors, his fascina­tion with the
natural world, his interest in Lord Byron and the Greek War
of Independence, and the profound influence of his voyage to
North Africa in 1832. It brings to life his relationships with his
contemporaries, ranging from the painters Pierre Narcisse
Guérin and Antoine Jean Gros to Gustave Courbet, as well as
his exploration of literary, historical, and biblical themes, his
writing in personal journals, and his triumphant exhibition at
the Exposition Universelle of 1855. Richly illustrated and
encompassing the entire range and diversity of his art, from
The Metropolitan Museum of Art grand paintings to intimate drawings, Delacroix illuminates
1000 Fifth Avenue how this intrepid figure changed the course of European
New York, New York 10028 painting by heeding “a call for the liberty of art.”
metmuseum.org

Distributed by Yale University Press,

New Haven and London
yalebooks.com/art 328 pages; 288 illustrations; bibliography; index
yalebooks.co.uk ISBN 978-1-58839-651-8

PRINTED IN ITALY

PRINTED IN ITALY
Delacroix
 Delacroix
Sébastien Allard and Côme Fabre
with contributions by Dominique de Font-Réaulx,
Michèle Hannoosh, Mehdi Korchane, and Asher Miller

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Distributed by Yale University Press, New Haven and London
This catalogue is published in conjunction with Photographs of works of art in the Metropolitan All rights reserved. No part of this publication
“Delacroix,” on view at the Musée du Louvre, Museum’s collection are by the Imaging Department, may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by
Paris, from March 29 through July 23, 2018, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, unless otherwise any means, electronic or mechanical, including
at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, noted. Additional image credits are on p. 314. photocopying, recording, or any information storage
from September 17, 2018, through January 6, 2019. and retrieval system, without permission in writing
Typeset by Tina Henderson in Louize and Proba from the publishers.
The exhibition is made possible by the Eugene V. Printed on 150 gsm Condat Matt Perigord
and Clare E. Thaw Charitable Trust. Separations by Verona Libri, Verona, Italy The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Printed and bound by Verona Libri, Verona, Italy 1000 Fifth Avenue
Additional funds are provided by the Janice H. Levin New York, New York 10028
Fund, the Sherman Fairchild Foundation, Jacket illustrations: front, detail, Women of Algiers in metmuseum.org
The Florence Gould Foundation, and the Gail and Their Apartment, 1834, cat. 83; back, detail, Self-Portrait
Parker Gilbert Fund. in a Green Vest, ca. 1837, cat. 93 Distributed by
Title pages: pp. ii–iii, detail, Collision of Arab Horsemen, Yale University Press, New Haven and London
It is supported by an Indemnity from the Federal 1833/34, cat. 81 yalebooks.com/art
Council on the Arts and the Humanities. Frontispieces: p. vi, detail, Young Tiger Playing with yalebooks.co.uk
Its Mother (Study of Two Tigers), 1830, cat. 67; p. viii,
The exhibition is organized by The Metropolitan Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available from
detail, Lion Hunt, sketch, 1854, cat. 134; p. x, detail,
Museum of Art and the Musée du Louvre. the Library of Congress.
Christ in the Garden of Olives (The Agony in the Garden),
The catalogue is made possible by the Diane W. and 1824–26, cat. 17; p. xiv, detail, Greece on the Ruins of
ISBN 978-1-58839-651-8
James E. Burke Fund and the Janice H. Levin Fund. Missolonghi, 1826, cat. 26; p. 224, detail, The Natchez,
1823–24 and 1835, cat. 84; p. 234, detail, The Triumph
of Genius over Envy, ca. 1849–51, cat. 117; p. 244, detail,
Orphan Girl in the Cemetery, 1824, fig. 9; p. 254, detail,
Published by The Metropolitan Museum of Art,
Medea About to Kill Her Children (Medée furieuse),
New York
1838, cat. 94; p. 266, detail, The Sultan of Morocco and
Mark Polizzotti, Publisher and Editor in Chief His Entourage, 1856, cat. 138
Gwen Roginsky, Associate Publisher and
The Metropolitan Museum of Art endeavors to
General Manager of Publications
respect copyright in a manner consistent with its
Peter Antony, Chief Production Manager
nonprofit educational mission. If you believe any
Michael Sittenfeld, Senior Managing Editor
material has been included in this publication
Edited by Elizabeth L. Block, with Sarah McFadden improperly, please contact the Publications and
Designed by Rita Jules, Miko McGinty Inc. Editorial Department.
Production by Paul Booth
Copyright © 2018 by The Metropolitan Museum of
Bibliography and notes edited by Kirsten Painter
Art, New York
and Jean Wagner
“The Sphinx of Modern Painting” copyright © 2018
Image acquisitions and permissions by Jenn Sherman
by Sébastien Allard and Côme Fabre
Translations from the French of the essays by Sébastien
First printing
Allard and Côme Fabre, Mehdi Korchane, and
Dominique de Font-Réaulx are by Jane Marie Todd.
 Contents

Foreword vii
Lenders to the Exhibition ix
Contributors ix
Preface and Acknowledgments xi
ASHER MILLER

The Sphinx of Modern Painting

SÉBASTIEN ALLARD AND CÔME FABRE

“ Fame Is Not an Empty Word”: 1822–32 1

Driven to Greatness: 1833–54 97

From the Last of the Romantics to the Genius of Color: 1855–63 164

The Act of Looking in Delacroix’s Early Narrative Paintings 225

ASHER MILLER

“Painting His Thoughts on Paper”: Delacroix and His Journal 235

MICHÈLE HANNOOSH

Eugène and His Masters: Becoming Delacroix 245

MEHDI KORCHANE

Delacroix and the Exposition Universelle of 1855 255

DOMINIQUE DE FONT-RÉAULX

Notes 267
Checklist 275
COMPILED BY ASHER MILLER

Bibliography 298
Index 306
 Foreword

Eugène Delacroix (1798–1863) was celebrated as a phenome- We are enormously thankful to the Eugene V. and
non in his lifetime and is a giant in the history of French art. Clare E. Thaw Charitable Trust for its extraordinary support
No other figure of his time balanced his reverence for the of this exhibition. We express our gratitude to the Janice H.
past, including art, literature, and music, with his ambition Levin Fund for making both the exhibition and this catalogue
and spirit of innovation. He was a key figure in the unfolding possible, and to the Sherman Fairchild Foundation, The
of what we think of today as modern, a defining feature of Florence Gould Foundation, and the Gail and Parker Gilbert
the nineteenth century, and as such he has been admired by Fund for their generosity to this presentation. We also extend
a remarkably diverse company of writers, critics, and artists our appreciation to the Diane W. and James E. Burke Fund
including Charles Baudelaire, Paul Cézanne, and Pablo for helping us bring this beautiful publication to realization.
Picasso. His career as a painter spanned more than forty years, We deeply appreciate the enthusiasm and generosity
from early showings at the Salons of the 1820s to the triumph of the Louvre as well as some sixty other lenders, including
of his retrospective display at the Exposition Universelle of many of the principal museums of the United States and
1855 and until the end of his life. In addition to his artistic Europe and numerous private collectors. We express our
achievement, Delacroix was a distinguished man of letters; profound gratitude to them all. In addition to rarely lent
he wrote eloquently, broadly, and reflectively. masterpieces from the Louvre such as Women of Algiers in Their
To mark the centenary of Delacroix’s death, a monu­ Apartment, there is the spectacular Christ in the Garden of
mental exhibition curated by Maurice Sérullaz was organized Olives, taken down from its high perch in Saint-­Paul-­Saint-­
by the Louvre. It was a fitting venue, given that this was the Louis and newly cleaned for the exhibition, Greece on the Ruins
museum where Delacroix hoped his work would be preserved of Missolonghi from the Musée des Beaux-­Arts, Bordeaux, the
for posterity along with that of Raphael and Poussin, and for immersive Battle of Nancy lent by the Musée des Beaux-­Arts in
which he completed the ceiling of the Gallery of Apollo the city for which it was painted, and the fortuitous pairing of
begun two centuries earlier by Charles Le Brun, the official Saint Sebastian Tended by the Holy Women and Medea About to
painter of Louis XIV. Innumerable exhibitions have focused Kill Her Children from, respectively, the church of Saint-­
on one or another aspect of Delacroix’s prolific production, Michel, Nantua, and the Palais des Beaux-­Arts, Lille.
but a complete retrospective has not been presented since A few days before his death, Delacroix wrote: “The chief
1963, and none has ever been mounted in North America. merit of a painting is to be a feast for the eye. That is not to
The present catalogue and its accompanying exhibition were say that there is no need for it to have meaning; like beautiful
conceived to reevaluate this complex and protean artist in poetry, if it offends the ear, then all the meaning in the world
light of the most recent research. At The Met, the exhibition cannot redeem it.” We wish this homage to the master to be
has been organized by Asher Miller, associate curator in the a feast for the eye and also for the spirit.
Department of European Paintings.
The texts of this catalogue explore the continuities that Daniel H. Weiss
lie behind the plenitude and variety of Delacroix’s output. The President and CEO, The Metropolitan Museum of Art,
challenge is a great one, because the scope of his production is New York
exceptional, encompassing thousands of drawings, prints in
every medium, hundreds of easel paintings including the Jean-­Luc Martinez
immense canvases of the artist’s youth, most of them preserved President and director, Musée du Louvre, Paris
at the Louvre, as well as the decorative programs that adorn
some of the most impressive civic and religious spaces in Paris.

vii
 Lenders to the Exhibition

Belgium Musée du Louvre, Paris Switzerland

Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Musée National Eugène-Delacroix, Paris Kunstmuseum Basel – Öffentliche
Brussels Musée d’Orsay, Paris Kunstsammlung
Petit Palais, Musée des Beaux-Arts de la Ville
Canada de Paris United Kingdom
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa Musée des Beaux-Arts, Tours The National Gallery, London
Musée des Beaux-Arts, Vannes
Czech Republic United States
Národní Galerie, Prague Germany The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore
Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Nationalgalerie Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
France Kunsthalle Bremen—Der Kunstverein in Bremen Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York
Musée des Beaux-Arts, Arras Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Main Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum,
Musée des Beaux-Arts, Bordeaux Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe Cambridge, Mass.
Palais des Beaux-Arts, Lille Houghton Library, Harvard University,
Musée des Beaux-Arts, Lyon Mexico Cambridge, Mass.
Musée Fabre, Montpellier Méditerranée Pérez Simón Collection, Mexico Ackland Art Museum, University of North
Métropole Carolina at Chapel Hill
Musée des Beaux-Arts, Nancy The Netherlands Art Institute of Chicago
Musée d’Arts de Nantes, Nantes Métropole Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth
Fonds National d’Art Contemporain / Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
Centre National des Arts Plastiques The Morgan Library & Museum, New York
(Church of Saint-Michel, Nantua) Norway Philadelphia Museum of Art
Musée des Beaux-Arts, Orléans The National Museum of Art, Architecture Portland Art Museum, Oregon
Les Arts Décoratifs, Musée des Arts Décoratifs, and Design, Oslo Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond
Paris
Conservation des Oeuvres d’Art Religieuses Spain Private Collections
et Civiles de la Ville de Paris / Direction Tubacex S.A. Karen B. Cohen, New York
Régionale des Affaires Culturelles d’Ile-de- Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid Roberta J. M. Olson and Alexander
France (Church of Saint-Paul-Saint-Louis, B. V. Johnson
Paris) Sweden Private collection, courtesy of Art
Institut National d’Histoire de l’Art, Paris Nationalmuseum, Stockholm Cuéllar-Nathan
Private collections, New York
Private collections

Contributors

Sébastien Allard Dominique de Font-Réaulx Mehdi Korchane

Chief curator and director, Department Director, Musée National Eugène-Delacroix, Independent scholar
of Paintings, Musée du Louvre, Paris Paris
Asher Miller
Côme Fabre Michèle Hannoosh Associate curator, Department of European
Curator of nineteenth-century French Professor of French, University of Michigan, Paintings, The Metropolitan Museum of Art,
paintings, Department of Paintings, Ann Arbor New York
Musée du Louvre, Paris

 ix
 Preface and Acknowledgments

Whether encountering Eugène Delacroix for the first time or who belonged to this storied circle was the strength of his
after long engagement with his life and work, readers of this ambition to conquer the public on his own terms: a deeply
volume will gain appreciation for one of the great creative held conviction that his personal interests, creative impulses,
imaginations of the nineteenth century. Museumgoers may be and erudition were an appropriate foundation for art of
acquainted with Delacroix, but they can be forgiven for not enduring value. Hallmarks of his work, abundantly evident in
feeling that they know him. His output is vast, diverse, and the exhibition and catalogue, include novel subject matter, a
widely disseminated, and a definitive edition of his extensive theatrical sense of composition, a vibrant palette, and a vigor-
writings has yet to appear in English. One place to begin is to ous painterly technique that prioritized the freshness of the
look at the paintings—and drawings and prints—in person, as initial sketch over traditional notions of finish.
Van Gogh did when he wrote: “What I find so fine about A great deal of serious scholarship was inspired by now
Delacroix is precisely that he reveals the liveliness of things, legendary monographic exhibitions held at the Louvre in 1930
and the expression and the movement, that he is utterly beyond and 1963. But it is also fair to say that Paul Jamot’s assessment
the paint.” The opportunity to discover Delacroix with fresh in the preface to the catalogue of the earlier show still applies,
eyes is reason enough for the present exhibition. that Delacroix is an illustrious name and a great name, but he
Delacroix was unquestionably one of the most important is not well understood. In other words, Delacroix is a major
figures in France, both within and outside the realm of the figure in the history of European painting who merits a close
visual arts, to come of age in the wake of Napoleon. The reappraisal. The present exhibition and catalogue provide a
inexhaustible richness of his production is here presented in unique occasion to gain a deeper understanding of this defin-
all its complexity, with an emphasis on layers of association ing figure of French painting. It is an opportunity to take the
across the three main phases of his long career, the diverse artist at his word, when he summed up the immediacy and
genres he mastered, and the materials in which he worked. In urgency of his art: “Materially speaking, painting is nothing
the extensive texts that follow, the authors of this book build but a bridge set up between the mind of the artist and that of
on and pay tribute to fundamental studies by such exemplary the beholder.”
scholars as Adolphe Moreau, Alfred Robaut, Maurice Sérullaz, For enabling that most essential of Delacroix’s credos
and Lee Johnson, breathing new life into the legacy of an to be brought to life, I am deeply grateful to the Eugene V.
artist whose art and writings reveal limitless capacity for self-­ and Clare E. Thaw Charitable Trust. Its generous gift in mem-
reflection. This was the man about whom Théophile Silvestre ory of the late Eugene V. Thaw (1927–2018) makes it possible
wrote that his “character is violent and sulfurous, but his to enrich the legacy of a brilliant collector and visionary
self-­possession is total,” and about whom Charles Baudelaire philanthropist by introducing visitors to The Met to one of the
reflected, “Delacroix was passionately in love with passion, but great artists of the Western canon. Delacroix held pride of
coldly determined to express passion as clearly as possible.” place in Gene Thaw’s pantheon, both as a collector and in his
Delacroix commenced formal training in the Paris atelier work as an art dealer. He appreciated that works which had
of the Neoclassical painter Pierre Narcisse Guérin, where he passed through his hands would play an important role in this
encountered the magnetic Théodore Gericault. But his artistic exhibition, and he looked forward to its fruition.
pedigree reached back even further—to Guérin’s own master, Projects of this size present unique financial challenges,
Jacques Louis David, dean of the French school during the and The Met is proud to acknowledge support from the
prior twenty-­five years of Revolution and Empire. What distin- Janice H. Levin Fund, the Sherman Fairchild Foundation,
guished Delacroix from the dozens of talented young artists The Florence Gould Foundation, and the Gail and Parker

xi
Gilbert Fund, the Diane W. and James E. Burke Fund, as well Paintings is gratefully acknowledged for their support in ways
as the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities for its large and small; the diligence of Jane R. Becker, Gretchen
indemnification of Delacroix. Wold, Rebecca Ben-­Atar, Lisa Cain, Patrice Mattia, Andrew
Delacroix is the glorious result of a group effort, of Caputo, Laura Corey, John McKanna, Rachel Robinson, and
extraordinary people working together for more than four Garth Swanson is also deeply appreciated. The contributions
years on both sides of the Atlantic. I therefore express my of the following former interns were invaluable: Jack Shapiro,
gratitude to all who have steered the project since its incep- Alec Aldrich, Emily Cox, Emma Lasry, and Haley S. Pierce.
tion: Daniel H. Weiss, president and chief executive officer of For their expertise, I thank Michael Gallagher, Sherman
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Max Hollein, director, Fairchild Chairman of Paintings Conservation, Charlotte
as well as his predecessor, Thomas P. Campbell; and in Paris, Hale, and Cynthia Moyer in the Department of Paintings
Jean-­Luc Martinez, president and director of the Musée du Conservation; Peter Van de Moortel, the Sherman Fairchild
Louvre. The idea for this catalogue and its accompanying Fellow in 2014–16; and Marjorie Shelley, Sherman Fairchild
exhibition originated with Henri Loyrette, former director Conservator in Charge, Department of Paper Conservation.
of the Louvre, at the conclusion of the Delacroix exhibition Colleagues in the Department of Drawings and Prints who
presented in Madrid and Barcelona in 2011–12. It was nur- have been generous with their support and expertise are
tured by Marc Mayer, director of the National Gallery of Nadine M. Orenstein, Drue Heinz Curator in Charge, Ashley
Canada, and Paul Lang, formerly its deputy director and chief Dunn, Perrin Stein, Mark McDonald, Elizabeth Zanis, David
curator, and presently director of the Musées de Strasbourg; del Gaizo, and Ricky Luna. The work of photographer Juan
their participation in the early phases of the project was indis- Trujillo and digital imaging specialists Christopher Heins and
pensable to laying a solid foundation on which to build, and Wilson Santiago was also instrumental to the project.
has resonated at every stage since. The boundless energy, For the exhibition catalogue, I thank Mark Polizzotti,
enthusiasm, and vision of Keith Christiansen, John Pope-­ publisher and editor in chief, and his colleagues in the
Hennessy Chairman, Department of European Paintings at Publications and Editorial Department: Gwen Roginsky,
The Met, infused this collaboration with a level of collegiality Michael Sittenfeld, Peter Antony, Paul Booth, Anne Blood,
and goodwill that dignifies the two august institutions, and Jennifer Bantz, along with Sarah McFadden, Kirsten
the highest aims of which this exhibition embodies. The Painter, Jenn Sherman, and Jean Wagner. Elizabeth Block has
erudition of Sébastien Allard, chief curator and director of overseen the publication of this volume, the splendid design
the Department of Paintings at the Louvre, and Côme Fabre, of which was created by Miko McGinty Inc.
curator of nineteenth-century French paintings, pervades At the Louvre, I especially thank Pascal Périnel,
every aspect of Delacroix, and we herald their commitment Victorine Majani d’Inguimbert, Violaine Bouvet-­Lanselle, and
to excellence. Camille Sourisse.
At The Met, I offer my warmest thanks to Quincy For their insightful texts in the present volume and
Houghton, deputy director for exhibitions, to her predeces- advice on my own essay and other aspects of the exhibition,
sor, Jennifer Russell, and to the entire exhibitions team: I am grateful to Dominique de Font-­Réaulx, Michèle
Gillian Fruh, manager for exhibitions; Martha Deese, senior Hannoosh, and Mehdi Korchane.
administrator for exhibitions and international affairs; Linda In addition to the lenders, it is my distinct pleasure to
Sylling, former manager for special exhibitions and gallery acknowledge the following individuals for assistance and
installations; Nina S. Maruca, senior associate registrar; encouragement that took many forms in the realization of this
Daniel Kershaw, exhibition design manager; Alexandre Viault, project: Christopher Apostle, Helga Kessler Aurisch, Colin B.
senior graphic designer; Jennifer Isakowitz, senior publicist; Bailey, Fred Bancroft, Sophie Barthélémy, Laura Bennett,
and Ann Meisinger, assistant educator. I recognize the efforts Claire Bernardi, Molly Bernhard, Françoise Berretrot, Anders
of Jason Herrick, chief philanthropy officer; Amy Lamberti, Bjørnsen, François Blanchetière, W. Mark Brady, Jo Briggs,
assistant general counsel; and Nicole Sussmane, legal assistant. Jean-­Gabriel de Bueil and Stanislas Ract-­Madoux, Caroline
The entire curatorial staff of the Department of European Campbell, the late Eric G. Carlson, Dawson W. Carr,

xii DELACROIX
Laurence des Cars, Eric de Chassey, Karen B. Cohen, Reifert, Gaëlle Rio, Christopher Riopelle, Joseph Rishel,
Deborah Coy, Maider Cuadra, Arturo and Corinne Cuéllar, Mark and Rochelle Rosenberg, E. John Rosenwald, Christa M.
Salomon Cuéllar, Philipp Demandt, Maite van Dijk, Michel Savino, Annie Scottez-­De Wambrechies, George T. M.
Draguet, Flavie Durand-­Ruel, Paul-­Louis Durand-­Ruel, Shackelford, Guillermo Solana, Miriam Stewart, Susan
Alexander Eiling, Ignatius J. Evans, Evelyne Ferlay, Olivier Strauber, Elizabeth Taylor, Graciela Téllez Trevilla, Jennifer
Gabet, Bruno Girveau, Eric Gordon, Gloria Groom, Charles Thompson, Gary Tinterow, Jennifer Tonkovich, Isabelle
Hack, Tracy Hamilton, Dorothee Hansen, Katie Hanson, Vazelle, Alvaro Videgain, Charles Villeneuve de Janti, George
John D. Herring, Paul L. Herring, Michel Hilaire, Eleanor Wachter, Zoe Watnick, and Wheelock Whitney III. La
Hoeger, Stine Hoel, Diana Howard, Holly E. Hughes, Sauvergarde de l’Art Français, Paris, is acknowledged for
Thomas Hyry, Amy Indyke, Alexander B. V. Johnson and making possible the conservation of Christ in the Garden of
Roberta J. M. Olson, Ay-­Whang Hsia, James C. Kelly, Olives. I extend special thanks to Katie Flanagan for her
Edouard Kopp, Felix Krämer, Jon and Barbara Landau, thoughtfulness and graciousness during critical stages of this
Christophe Leribault, Sophie Lévy, Heather Lemonedes, exhibition as it unfolded. As ever, I am grateful to Heather
Sylvaine Lestable, Victoria Sancho Lobis, Dominique Miller for her steadfast support and confidence.
Maréchal, Hope Mayo, Suzanne Folds McCullagh, James G.
McGovern, Mitchell Merling, Kristina Mösl, Marie Monfort,
Johannes Nathan and Antoinette Friedenthal, Richard Asher Miller
Nathanson, Jill Newhouse, Peter Nisbet, Magnus Olausson, Associate curator, Department of European Paintings,
Carl-­Johan Olsson, Stéphane Paccoud, Sylvie Ramond, Eva The Metropolitan Museum of Art

xiii
 The Sphinx of Modern Painting
SÉBASTIEN ALLARD AND CÔME FABRE

“Fame Is Not an Empty Word”: 1822–32

On September 3, 1822, while staying with his brother Charles

Henry at Le Louroux, Eugène Delacroix (fig. 1) began keeping
a journal.1 This initiative marked the anniversary of the death
of his “beloved mother” and also the occasion of his “present
triumph,” the exhibition of his first Salon painting, Dante
and Virgil in the Underworld, or The Barque of Dante, as it is
generally known, at the Musée du Luxembourg (fig. 2). The
canvas had been the subject of heated debate at the Salon of
1822. A handful of contemporaries admired it: Adolphe
Thiers, a young lawyer from Marseilles who had just arrived
in Paris and was hoping to make a name for himself by writing
reviews of the exhibition, praised it enthusiastically in Le
constitutionnel, a liberal, opposition newspaper. But most critics
did not understand the work, including the powerful critic
Etienne Jean Delécluze, who would remain antagonistic
toward Delacroix throughout his life. In Le moniteur universel,
Delécluze called the painting a tartouillade (a daub).2

FIG. 1Frédéric Villot (French, 1809–1875). Portrait of Eugène Delacroix

(after a Self-­Portrait Drawing), 1847. Mezzotint and drypoint on paper,
image 63/8 x 43/16 in (16.2 x 10.7 cm); sheet 81/4 x 51/8 in. (21 x 13 cm).
Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris (inv. N2)

1
FIG. 2 The Barque of Dante (Dante and Virgil in the Underworld), 1822. Oil on canvas, 747/16 x 967/8 in. (189 x 246 cm). Musée du Louvre, Paris (3820) (J 100)

The state’s purchase of The Barque of Dante, arranged to the Louvre”; every painting exhibited there would be
by comte Auguste de Forbin, director of museums, meant that transferred to the Louvre upon its maker’s death. Delacroix,
the painting would enter the collection of the museum of who was barely twenty-­four when the Barque entered the
living artists established in 1818 at the Palais du Luxembourg. collection in 1822, had just scored a major coup: although
Louis XVIII (r. 1814–24) intended the museum to fill the his career had hardly begun, he knew that after he died,
void left by the repatriation of works of art seized by French is art would be displayed on the walls of the Louvre, like
armies during the Napoleonic Wars. He wanted it to func- that of Raphael and Poussin. This prospect gratified him
tion as a symbol of both the glory of the French school and immensely. Not long after, he would write, “Fame is not
the munificence of royal patronage. This new museum—the an empty word for me. The sound of praise gives me
Musée du Luxembourg—was conceived as “the antechamber real happiness.”3

2 DELACROIX
“Pray to Heaven That I May Be a Great Man” notebooks: “Wednesday, March 29: day of gunfire.”8 With
the ensuing peace, his dreams of the military glory his broth-
Trained in the secondary schools of the French Empire, ers had known evaporated. What remained for him? His
where fame was considered the cardinal virtue, Delacroix mother’s death on September 3, 1814, left Delacroix and his
aspired to achieve it from his earliest years. He filled his sister utterly destitute. Indeed, Henriette had been forced to
student notebooks with variations on his signature that suggest leave Paris. He observed with sadness the decline of his
something beyond mere experiments in penmanship. Written brother, also near bankruptcy; “surrounded by roughnecks
in roman and gothic styles, in color, and as rebuses, the and riff-­raff,” Charles was under pressure to conceal an extra-
inscriptions—“Delacroix,” “de La Croix,” “Della Croce”— marital affair with the daughter of a tavern keeper.9 The obli-
were sometimes preceded by an emphatic “Monsieur.” In gation to restore luster to the family name thus rested with
November 1815, he wrote to his friend Achille Piron: “Pray to Delacroix. It appears, then, that his desire for fame arose not
heaven that I may be a great man”—an entreaty that reveals his solely from social ambition or classical virtue, but also from an
preoccupation with fame from a very young age.4 acute historical consciousness.
Delacroix’s lineage was prestigious. His mother, born His uncle Henri François Riesener had secured him a
Victoire Oeben, was the daughter of the famous cabinetmaker place in the studio of Pierre Narcisse Guérin, probably in
Jean François Oeben; his uncle was the painter Henri François 1813, and there he became friends with Théodore Gericault.10
Riesener. Henri’s wife, the former Félicité Longrois, was a An artistic career was just one path among others that he
favorite aunt, and their son Léon (also a painter), would considered following to fulfill his destiny, and for a long time
become one of Delacroix’s closest friends (see cats. 88, 89). he hesitated. The startling beginning to his Journal, which
Delacroix’s father had been minister of foreign affairs under condensed in a few lines his first triumph and his mother’s
the Directory, and Delacroix often looked to him as a model.5 death, seems to have introduced unconsciously a causal rela-
His eldest brother, Charles Henry, a general and baron of the tionship, as if her death had ultimately determined the direc-
Empire, was made an honorary maréchal de camp, and his other tion he would take.
brother, Henri, died courageously at the Battle of Friedland in Whether or not this was so, Delacroix, intent on distin-
1807. Delacroix felt the need to distinguish himself, as indicated guishing himself, would take full advantage of the liberaliza-
by a letter to his sister, Henriette de Verninac, after The Barque tion of art institutions under the aegis of the comte de Forbin
of Dante was purchased at the Salon of 1822 when, referring to at the beginning of the Bourbon Restoration. He would
a laudatory review by Adolphe Thiers, he suggested: “[My also make the most of the Salon, the premier exhibition of
nephew] will be filled with pride for his uncle and will learn works by living artists, usually held biannually at the Louvre.11
to respect one more great man.”6 However, his 1815 exhorta- His generation would learn to capitalize on the goodwill of
tion to Piron betrays a dual anxiety: that of failure and the an administration eager to support new talents and intent on
passage of time. He exclaimed, “Oh, we are very old and have reinforcing the dynamism of the “French school.” In 1816
seen many things!” adding: “I have plans. I would like to do Jacques Louis David, the father of that school, had fled to
something, but nothing has come into focus just yet.”7 Brussels as a regicide,12 and the remaining masters, especially
Delacroix, born in 1798, belonged to the first generation David’s students Antoine Jean Gros, François Gérard, Anne
to experience the acceleration of history captured by Alfred Louis Girodet—and also Guérin—were beginning to show
de Musset, who was twelve years the artist’s junior, in La signs of weakness.13 In May 1821 Forbin wrote to his friend the
confession d’un enfant du siècle. Musset’s book was published painter François Marius Granet: “No one really knows what
in 1836, twenty years after the events—the triumph of the Gérard is doing. It’s always very mysterious, but he is polite
Empire, its glory and fall—that left an entire generation of and has lovely manners. Gros takes little interest in others; he
young people at loose ends, trapped between a reviled past is as well-­mannered as ever. I leave him alone in his sad cor-
and an uncertain future, yet in a world where everything ner. Girodet has retired to the countryside and no longer
seemed possible. On March 29, 1814, the eve of the allied paints. Guérin is here, but he doesn’t do much anymore
forces’ entry into Paris, Delacroix, as if disillusioned by either. The young people will try very hard, and the Salon
Napoleon’s imminent defeat, wrote in one of his school will, I think, be very lively.”14

4 DELACROIX
 In 1821, Delacroix, although only a beginner, understood make a name for himself there. He may have been influenced
that the Salon scheduled for the following year was an oppor- by the example of friends and acquaintances. His master,
tunity to be seized. Having just failed to win the Prix de Guérin, though a great defender of the traditional path, had
Rome, he was troubled by a sense that time was slipping away. had his first success as a painter at the Salon of 1799 with The
As he explained to his sister: “I would be very proud . . . to Return of Marcus Sextus.20 More recently, Théodore Gericault
have the time to do something for the next Salon. These and Ary Scheffer, students of Guérin’s and Delacroix’s class-
exhibitions are now so far apart that you can become old in mates, had won their spurs at the Salon of 1812 without having
the intervals between them . . . and it is good to win a bit of studied in Rome beforehand: Gericault with the Portrait of
recognition, if possible.”15 The urgency with which he threw Lieutenant M. D., later known as Officer of the Chasseurs
himself into the fray, although linked to his generation’s Commanding a Charge (Louvre); and Scheffer with Abel Singing
awareness of an acceleration of historical time, was also rooted a Hymn of Praise (location unknown).21 They were among the
in his financial woes. To earn money, Delacroix designed artists who were then adopting a new strategy of appealing
machines with his friend Charles-­Louis-­Raymond Soulier and directly to the public for approval before—or instead of—
drew liberal-­leaning political cartoons—a rare occurrence of seeking official recognition, in the form of the Prix de Rome,
overtly political views in his oeuvre—for the satirical newspa- from their colleagues.22 This approach provoked a major
per Le miroir.16 He also obtained work as a fine artist. In 1819, a upheaval within the tradition-­bound fine arts system. The
patron commissioned him to paint a Virgin for the church of turmoil, bolstered by the unprecedented rise of the press in
the village of Orcemont, near Paris, and in 1820 Gericault the early 1820s, was indeed felt at the Académie de France
subcontracted to him a commission from the Ministère de in Rome.
l’Intérieur for a Virgin of the Sacred Heart (see fig. 110). Finally, Although Delacroix would plan the specifics of his first
in autumn 1821, Delacroix completed the decoration for the Salon entry in an intelligent, pragmatic, and, above all, system-
dining room in the newly built mansion of the great actor atic manner, his reasons for submitting a painting to the exhi-
Talma. But his earnings from these projects fell short of his bition were not based on principle, even though his future
needs: his studies with Guérin and the Ecole des Beaux-­Arts was at stake. In fact, it seems that he had not yet given up on
were costly, as were his materials, models, and the rental of the idea of eventually contending for the Prix de Rome.
scaffolding at the museum.17 To improve his finances, he Aware of his technical deficiencies, he even entertained the
hoped to secure a commission or purchase by the state at possibility of training in the studio of Antoine Jean Gros, who
the Salon. at that time had the highest reputation for preparing students
for the competitive exams.23 Delacroix’s decision to “try his
luck,” as he told Soulier, at the Salon was that of a young man
1822: Trying His Luck in a hurry, hungry for recognition and driven by the need to
secure a commission or a purchase.24 The gambit paid off
Under the auspices of the comte de Forbin, the Salon for brilliantly, with the state’s acquisition of The Barque of Dante
the first time opened its doors to young artists who had not and its exhibition in the Musée du Luxembourg at a time
necessarily followed the well-established course of study when not even Gericault or Gros had works displayed there.
culminating in the Prix de Rome competition. Even more Delacroix’s decision would determine the entire course of his
than others, Delacroix immediately understood the Salon’s career, not only his vocation as a painter but also his fondness
importance: “I would really like to do a painting for the next for exhibiting his works to the public. Delacroix would be
Salon, especially if it could get people to know me some- one of the few artists of his generation—Camille Corot was
what,” he wrote in 1821 to his friend Soulier, who was then in another—to put his reputation on the line by participating at
Naples.18 Delacroix had advised Soulier a few weeks earlier: the Salon until the very end of his career.
“Think about next year’s Salon. You must plaster it with your Delacroix skillfully prepared his submission to the Salon,
watercolors and oil paintings. That’s where you’ll really make probably guided by the successes and failures of Gericault at
yourself known.”19 In 1821 Delacroix declined to try again for the previous exhibitions. The subject of the painting was
the Prix de Rome in order to join the fray at the Salon and clearly of paramount importance in attracting attention among

“FAME IS NOT AN EMPTY WORD”: 1822–32 5

 CAT. 88 Léon Riesener (1808–1878), 1835

CAT. 89 Madame Henri François Riesener (Félicité Longrois, 1786–1847), 1835

6 DELACROIX
hundreds of works; an episode from Dante’s Divine Comedy, the “A Sublime Triviality That Thrills”
final choice, came after much deliberation. On September 15,
1821, Delacroix, still undecided about what he was going The choice of a subject inspired by Dante would prove tre-
to paint, wrote to Soulier: “I am proposing to do a painting for mendously effective. It is not known whether the idea was
the Salon, for which I will take as my subject the recent wars the artist’s alone or if it was suggested to him by a devotee of
of the Turks and the Greeks. I believe that under the circum- Italian literature, such as the painter François Gérard. At the
stances, if there is some merit in the execution, it would be a time, familiarity with The Divine Comedy was, for the most part,
way to set myself apart.”25 In confiding this plan to his friend, superficial in France. Painters were acquainted with the story
Delacroix clearly expressed the hierarchical relationship of Ugolino and, consistent with the vogue for troubadour
between the subject and its execution. The standard by themes, the fateful love of Paolo and Francesca.30 But Dante’s
which interest in the work would be measured was, in fact, its epic poem had been part of Delacroix’s cultural frame of
subject. A Greek subject would have addressed a highly vola- reference since his years at the lycée. In 1814, he had copied
tile and timely issue. In 1821, the Greek War of Independence passages from the poem into his school notebooks.31 In 1819 or
against the Ottoman Empire had only just begun. The French 1820, he made drawings in his notebooks inspired by the work
government prudently maintained an official policy of strict and attempted to translate parts of it.32 On September 28, 1819,
neutrality in order to retain ties with all interested parties, he wrote to his friend Félix Guillemardet: “Sometimes when I
including Russia. Moreover, because France’s liberal faction am in the middle of the hunt, [but] my enthusiasm for the prey
openly sided with the Greeks, the Restoration government, has waned, I remember Ugolino, whom I had the presence of
which had just responded to the conspiracy of the Carbonari, mind to bring with me.”33 Delacroix wavered about which
was deeply anxious about the Greek independence move- episode to illustrate before finally turning his attention to the
ment. The risk, therefore, was that such a subject would be moment in canto 8 when Dante, guided by Virgil in Phlegyas’s
seen as a provocation. boat, crosses the river to the Underworld.34 He suddenly
In 1822 Delacroix, though of a liberal bent, wanted recognizes, amid the damned attempting to board the boat
primarily to make a name for himself and secure a commission (cat. 6), the wrathful Filippo Argenti, condemned to devour
or a purchase. He knew the risks, having before him the himself. In the background, the infernal city of Dis is burning.
example of Gericault’s controversial Raft of the Medusa,26 In choosing to illustrate a little-­known passage from The
exhibited in 1819. He may also have listened to the advice of Divine Comedy, Delacroix proposed a reformulation of certain
others, including Forbin, who scoured studios looking for principles of Neoclassical painting. With The Return of Marcus
young talent. Aside from the possibility of an immediate Sextus, his master Guérin had done the same, albeit inspired
scandal, there was another risk. Given the uncertainty of the by classical tragedy filtered through the lens of Racine. In the
times, even if the work were purchased by the state, it might 1820s, however, Delacroix’s source, The Divine Comedy, was
never hang in the Luxembourg owing to the vagaries of poli- not only unconventional but also partly transgressive. Trying
tics. Most of the great masters active under the Empire— his hand at translating the story of Ugolino, Delacroix con-
Gros, above all—­continued to pay a political price.27 fided to Guillemardet: “[It] is extraordinarily difficult. In the
Delacroix therefore abandoned his initial idea of a sub- original, there is a sublime triviality that thrills. The style drags
ject from contemporary history in favor of illustrating canto 8 as if to make you spend those six deadly days with Ugolino.”35
of Dante’s Inferno. That decision was made in late autumn The expression “sublime banality” aptly conveys what
1821. Because the Salon was set to open on April 24, 1822, Delacroix was trying to achieve in his painting, seemingly
the artist, as would be his habit, worked relentlessly and with anticipating by five years Victor Hugo’s preface to Cromwell.36
the utmost urgency, for as many as thirteen hours a day. In The Romantic generation to which Delacroix belonged, having
February, he wrote to his sister: “I am overwhelmed with grown up in a world both glorious and violent, could not fail
work. If I manage to pull off what I am undertaking, I will have to respond to the terribilità of The Inferno. The return of peace
done a rather substantial painting in only two months, one to Europe allowed for the dissemination and vogue for British
that might contribute toward making me well known.”28 gothic novels in France, and Delacroix read Dante in the
The painting was finished on April 15 (see fig. 2).29 light of these works. He devoured Matthew Gregory Lewis’s

8 DELACROIX
 CAT. 6 Studies of a Damned Man, for “The Barque of Dante,” 1822

Monk, which combines eroticism, spellbinding supernatural- at the Salons during the Revolution. Like those heroes of
ism, and fiendish visions. He copied excerpts from the French antiquity, Dante is accompanied by a guide, Virgil. And yet
translation of 1799 into his notebooks. The novel even Dante’s status in the poem turns the notion of the hero on its
inspired a poem he wrote in the early 1820s, at a time when head. The hierarchical relationship between classical charac-
he was rereading, translating, and illustrating Dante.37 ters and their guides is abandoned: Dante and Virgil are treated
The Inferno’s episode taking as its subject Filippo Argenti, as equals. The hero is thus split in two, a Romantic theme par
which features a medieval hero, hellish clouds and dark waters, excellence that recurs in Delacroix’s early works, such as in
burning cities, and the damned devouring one another, moan- the series of scenes from Goethe’s Faust (see cats. 36–56). In
ing and screaming, was at odds with the ideal of balance pro- the center of the canvas, Delacroix placed Virgil’s hand grasp-
pounded by Neoclassical painting. It also introduced a new ing Dante’s, a kind of modern equivalent of the Neoclassical
type of hero, one who is neither isolated nor triumphant. gesture of the oath. The oath, which conveys collective,
Delacroix captured Dante in a moment of doubt or hesitation, unifying, and socially hierarchized values, as in David’s Oath
as he witnesses a scene, apparently terrifying, located outside of the Horatii (1784; Musée du Louvre), is replaced in The
the frame. That space beyond the frame, which the painter Barque of Dante by the gesture of friendship, based on the free
invoked regularly in his early paintings, stimulates the imagina- consent of individuals. In a climate of equality, friendship
tion and elicits a new level of involvement on the part of the links concern for the self with concern for the other.
spectator.38 This is the famous “bridge” Delacroix would later During these years, Delacroix’s correspondence is
speak of between the minds of the painter and the beholder. filled with such ardent declarations addressed to Jean-­Baptiste
Dante, exiled from his own country and wandering in Pierret: “I am happy, really happy, only when I’m with a
the Underworld, brings to mind the peregrinations of friend”;39 “Most holy friendship, divine friendship, dear heart!
Oedipus, Belisarius, and Homer, who were often represented No, I am not worthy of you. You swathe me in your friendship.

“FAME IS NOT AN EMPTY WORD”: 1822–32 9

 FIG. 3 A Gathering of Friends on Saint Sylvester’s Day (New Year’s, 1817–18). From the so-­called Saint Sylvester’s Day Sketchbook, folios
31 verso and 32 recto, 1817–18. Ink and wash on paper, overall 913/16 x 153/4 in. (25 x 40 cm). Musée du Louvre, Paris (RF 9140)

You are my conqueror, I am your captive. Good friend, truly Monsieur Delacroix Shows “Promise of Real Talent”
you know how to love.”40 In the context of a new society that
would highlight horizonal structures (generational, artistic), Dante and Virgil, an entirely original subject, allowed the
personal feelings were coupled with social practice, as indicated young painter to engage visitors to the Salon through a series of
in a depiction of the traditional New Year’s Eve celebration, A familiar associations. The boat and the cannibalism among the
Gathering of Friends on Saint Sylvester’s Day (New Year’s, 1817–18) damned in the foreground evoked for his contemporaries
(fig. 3). In this drawing, Delacroix, Pierret, Guillemardet, and Gericault’s Raft of the Medusa, which had caused a scandal at
Piron are shown gathered by the fire, drinking, conversing, the previous Salon. Some pointed this out, including Arnold
and enjoying music. On the left-­hand page, each has signed his Scheffer (brother of the painter Ary), who wrote several years
name and, three years after the fall of the Empire, given his date later: “In that first work, imitating the manner of Gericault,
of birth according to the Revolutionary calendar. Delacroix, M. Delacroix showed promise of real talent but not the origi-
therefore, is shown to have been born on “the 9th of Floréal, nality that now marks his works.”42 The painting’s literary
Year 6 of the French Republic, one and indivisible”—as indi- subject allowed the artist to avoid political risks, which
visible as their friendship, symbolized by the handshake that Gericault himself had mitigated by giving his Raft the generic
dominates the page. The same gesture unites Virgil and Dante title “Shipwreck Scene” in the Salon catalogue, or livret, of
in a shared fate and an initiation of sorts. The reference to the 1819. The associations with Dante and Gericault called forth a
Revolutionary calendar in the midst of the Restoration, like third figure: Michelangelo. Evidence of that connection can
Delacroix’s use, in a letter to Piron written sometime after the be found in Delacroix’s attempted translation of canto 3,
Battle of Waterloo, of the “patriotic or revolutionary paper, devoted to the barque of Charon, recorded in one of his
however you want to interpret it,” reveals the liberal, which is to notebooks and illustrated on the right-­hand page with a
say Bonapartist, ideas that united the four friends at the time.41 drawing inspired in almost every detail by Michelangelo’s

10 DELACROIX
Last Judgment in the Sistine Chapel.43 Both the medieval poet through Gros’s example, expressed the new polarity in his
and the Renaissance master gave expression to dark, dramatic mind between inventiveness in the classic sense of the term
inspiration. The moderns did so also, sometimes at the and craft, between inspiration and the materiality of paint. In
expense of form and with a certain immoderation. The critic 1824 Delacroix would express that polarity differently: “It
Delécluze pointed this out in one of his first articles for Le would be a singular and very beautiful thing to bring together
moniteur universel, in which he attempted to define the essence the styles of Michelangelo and Velázquez.”46
of modern poetry—that is, poetry written since “that great rift The composition of The Barque of Dante was probably
in the arts brought about by Dante and Michelangelo.” He inspired not only by The Landing of Maria de Medici at Marseilles
contrasted the moderns, who, beginning with those two but also by Rubens’s Hero and Leander (1604; Yale University
figures, had emphasized expressiveness, to the ancients, who, Art Gallery), which Delacroix would have known through a
considering beauty the aim of art, had cultivated form. The large drawing by Lucas Vorsterman (ca. 1619; Musée du
critic, a former student of David’s and a defender of the Grand Louvre).47 From his study of the Maria de Medici cycle,
Tradition, noted that “our painting was supposed to be Delacroix learned the science of depicting flesh tones and
expressive.” At the same time, “in the interest of truth and reflections as well as the rational division of form into its colored
art,” he cautioned against “misusing that resource [expressive- components without the use of chiaroscuro. Contrary to what
ness], which leads . . . imperceptibly to exaggeration and the his assistant Pierre Andrieu would later claim, it is not possible
neglect of indispensable studies in the arts of imitation.”44 to detect in the drops of water on the bodies of the damned
With its dark subject, craggy faces, and the damned with their the first hints of “optical mixture”; but Delacroix did express
bloodshot eyes, The Barque of Dante obviously privileged in the Salon painting his understanding of the importance of
expressiveness. Delécluze, though an expert on The Divine reflections for bringing color to life. “Delacroix had a very hard
Comedy, therefore violently denounced Delacroix’s painting, time rendering in all their natural truth the drops of water
calling it a tartouillade. falling from the overturned nude figures,” wrote the artist-
manqué-­turned-­collector Alfred Bruyas. “These drops of water
set him off on a search. The memory of Rubens’s sirens in The
A Real Tartouillade Landing of Maria de Medici at Marseilles and the study of the
gradations of the rainbow were his starting point.”48 But where
In the idiom of the studio, a tartouillade was a weakly drawn Rubens displayed an economy of means by using the color of
painting in which everything was sacrificed to the brilliance of the sirens’ flesh as local color, Delacroix, who was also trying
the colors. It is true that in his first Salon painting, Delacroix to avoid black shadows, made use of a riot of colors: light is
supplemented his allusion to Michelangelo’s terribilità with, rendered by a brilliant white, gray tones by a green; reflections
in Thiers’s words, “the fecundity of Rubens.”45 The young are conveyed with a yellowish dab, and the shadow by a red.
painter belonged to the first generation of artists able to train Delacroix’s extraordinary richness and chromatic inventiveness
with relative freedom at the museum—that is to say, the are already summed up in these few square inches of canvas,
Louvre—directly in contact with the old masters, without the enlivened by the large red accent of Dante’s hood, contrasted
filter of academic teaching. In the early 1820s, Delacroix was with its complementary color, the green of his mantle.
fond of copying Peter Paul Rubens, especially the Nereids in Wishing to attract attention by impressing the public,
The Landing of Maria de Medici at Marseilles (fig. 4), as seen Delacroix balanced the boldness of a dark subject, the dra-
in the great study at the Kunstmuseum Basel (see cat. 5). He matic intensity of gesture and color, and the horrifying aspect
knew only a few sculptures by Michelangelo firsthand, and of the figures trying to board the boat through a display of
they could have been of use to him only through the force of beaux morceaux (beautifully rendered passages) in what consti-
their invention. By contrast, the works of the Antwerp master tuted the academic exercise par excellence: the nude. That is
were for Delacroix the essence of painting, and he sought to probably what led Gros to say that the painting was “Rubens
understand their mechanisms by observing and copying them. refined.”49 Delacroix distributed these passages in the fore-
The tension between Michelangelo’s influence, partly filtered ground, as a garland subtending the Dante-­Virgil group. The
through Gericault, and that of Rubens, apprehended in part rather ostentatious device allowed him to demonstrate his skill

“FAME IS NOT AN EMPTY WORD”: 1822–32 11

in combining references to antiquity—Phlegyas’s back, for
example, inspired by the Belvedere Torso—with a certain
realism in the rendering of the flesh, with bodies folded up or
splayed out in the extreme. Thiers was not mistaken in his
enthusiasm for the artist who “throws down his figures,
groups them, and bends them to his will with the boldness
of Michelangelo and the fecundity of Rubens. I’m not sure
which memory of the great artists takes hold of me as I look at
that painting.”50 The frieze-­like composition, which focuses
attention on the foreground, probably allowed the artist to
circumvent the difficulty he still had in defining space. The
reason for this difficulty was his reliance on live models while
building up his compositions. In the second part of his career,
he would try to dispense with their physical presence, believ-
ing that having the model before his eyes during the execution
of a painting obstructed the idealizing function of memory. In
the 1820s, by contrast, the use of a model seemed a way of
liberating himself from the constraints of academic teaching.
But let there be no mistake about the meaning of his
painting of 1822, which is sometimes considered year 1 of the
Romantic revolution. The young Delacroix was not wittingly
engaged in undermining pedagogical fundamentals or
Neoclassical principles. Did he not wish to study under Gros,
the (overly) faithful student of David? And for his part, did
not Gros, though an intransigent guardian of his master’s
teaching, try to attract the novice painter to his studio? Would
not Delacroix’s canvas, though judged imperfect (this was
normal for a beginner), be almost unanimously admired as
heralding a master? Unlike Ingres, whose talent was nurtured
in David’s studio and who, in 1806, said that “art needs to be FIG. 4 Peter Paul Rubens (Flemish, 1577–1640). The Landing of Maria
reformed,” Delacroix did not want to be “that particular revolu- de Medici at Marseilles on November 3, 1600, ca. 1622–25. Oil on canvas,
12 ft. 111/8 in. x 9 ft. 81/8 in. (3.9 x 3 m). Musée du Louvre, Paris (1774)
tionary” who would carry out reform.51 His primary objective
was to make a name for himself. And yet, even while following
in the footsteps of his more or less distant predecessors,
remaining at heart a man of his time faithful to the principles importance he attributed to a painting’s subject and its execu-
of the grand genre, he systematically shifted and reformulated tion.53 Delacroix’s originality lay in reassessing and accepting
his positions, at least somewhat aware of the polarity between the execution as “nobly” constitutive of the creative process;
the ideal aspect of his art and its material composition. in that, he broke with almost three centuries of painting,
In his early years, Delacroix was preoccupied with the defined as primarily cosa mentale, or ut pictura poesis. On May 11,
apparent contradiction of the aspiration for immateriality 1824, he lamented, “How I would like to be a poet!” Then,
existing within an art form produced by the materiality of paint correcting himself, he wrote, “But at least create in paint-
deposited on canvas by an artist’s hand, that “good, fat color” ing.”54 Two years earlier, in an important passage he would
that he wanted to spread “thickly over a brown or red can- revisit several times in the Journal of his later years, he laid the
vas.”52 This tension, which runs through a significant part of foundations for what distinguishes the painter’s art from that
his early Journal, found its concrete expression in the relative of the poet, namely, its relationship to materiality: “The art of

12 DELACROIX
 CAT. 5 Nereid, after Rubens, detail from “The Landing of Maria de Medici at Marseilles,” ca. 1822

the painter is all the nearer to man’s heart because it seems artist’s manner in particular. It was as if contemporaries found
to be more material.”55 The subtler critics, such as Delécluze, something repellent in an execution that was, in their view,
quickly understood the danger; the insulting tartouillade too conspicuous, as if it prevented them from seeing the subject
expressed exactly that: a formless form devoid of ideas. The represented. Gros, who in 1822 had applauded Delacroix’s
violent attacks to which Delacroix would be subjected at good fortune, two years later looked upon the artist’s Scenes
the Salons of 1824 and, especially, 1827 would take aim at the from the Massacres at Chios (fig. 5) as the massacre of painting.

“FAME IS NOT AN EMPTY WORD”: 1822–32 13

 CAT. 35 A Greek and a Turk in an Interior, late 1820s

The Muse and the Market massacred inhabitants of the island of Scio, now Chios,
and sold several thousand men, women, and children into
Emboldened by his first success, Delacroix decided to exhibit slavery in the principal cities of the empire. These killings
at the following Salon, which was set to open in August 1824. and deportations caused a wave of outrage in the West.
On May 24 or 31, 1823, he recorded in his Journal the subject They were conveyed in numerous accounts, one by Olivier
of the principal painting he would display: “I have decided Voutier, a French colonel in the service of the Greeks and the
to paint scenes from the massacres of Chios for the Salon.”56 discoverer of the Venus de Milo in 1820. Voutier’s Mémoires
The artist thus returned to an episode from the Greek War du Colonel Voutier sur la guerre actuelle des Grecs was published
of Independence, a subject that he had abandoned in 1821. in 1823. Delacroix moved in philhellenic circles, as did his
His earlier remark, “I believe that under the circumstances, nephew, Charles de Verninac, who introduced the artist to
if there is some merit in the execution, it would be a way to Voutier on January 12, 1824, the same day Delacroix noted
set myself apart,” would prove to be prescient with regard that he was “really” beginning his painting. Its composition
to both the content and the role of the subject in attracting had been interrupted in November 1823, and its long and
attention.57 He chose one of the most terrible episodes in painstaking execution would keep him occupied throughout
the war, one that had made a strong impact on Europeans the spring.58
owing to the profusion of dreadful details about it that had The artist’s sincere interest in the Greeks who were
circulated in the press. In the spring of 1822, Ottoman troops trying to liberate themselves from the Ottomans is beyond

FIG. 5 Scenes from the Massacres at Chios, 1824. Oil on canvas, 13 ft. 83/16 in. x
11 ft. 73/8 in. (4.2 x 3.5 m). Musée du Louvre, Paris (3823) (J 105)

“FAME IS NOT AN EMPTY WORD”: 1822–32 15

 CAT. 23 Charles VI and Odette de Champdivers, ca. 1825

doubt: many traces are found in 1821 to 1823, and throughout people, following the example of the British poet-­adventurer
the decade (see, for example, cat. 35). It is worth noting, Lord Byron, were caught up in philhellenic enthusiasm.
however, that he acted with a great deal of discernment in Delacroix had made a name for himself: his Barque of Dante
postponing the execution of his idea for a subject taken from had been purchased by the state and was on public display
contemporary history. By 1824, though the official French at the Musée du Luxembourg alongside works by widely
position was still not decided, there was reason to hope that acknowledged masters such as Joseph Marie Vien and David.
the country would side with the Greeks. The conflict, which Emboldened by this recognition, he could now brave the
had lasted three years, was on everyone’s mind, and young potentially polemical character of a topical subject.

16 DELACROIX
 CAT. 24 The Duke of Orléans Showing His Lover, ca. 1825–26

Perhaps there was even a pointed interest in his doing so. Gericault sale,” he confided in his Journal.59 Sometimes he just
With the liberalization of institutions, the art market had become wanted to relax: “Instead of another fairly large painting, I
considerably more complex; potentially, there were private should like to do several small paintings, but enjoy myself while
buyers for his work. Delacroix, who had to make the most of his painting them.”60 Then, aware of the time he considered having
initial success, was keenly aware of this. Even as he was working wasted on bread-­and-­butter jobs, he pulled himself together:
on his large piece for the Salon, he made several dozen small “No more Don Quixotes and things unworthy of you.
paintings for private patrons, often for financial reasons. “[I] Concentrate deeply when you are painting and think only of
want to do small paintings, especially to buy something at the Dante. In his works lie what I have always felt within myself.”61

“FAME IS NOT AN EMPTY WORD”: 1822–32 17

 Delacroix was alluding here to Don Quixote in His Library Rochefoucauld, the intractable director of fine arts, who was
(1824; Tokyo Fuji Art Museum). But the contrast between that indignant about the breach of protocol: “I had the honor of
painting and two of the most beautiful of his small canvases is proposing more promptly than usual that you acquire the
striking. Charles VI and Odette de Champdivers (cat. 23) and paintings . . . to prevent these works, all of them remarkable,
The Duke of Orléans Showing His Lover (cat. 24) were painted from being purchased by individuals who would establish
somewhat later, about 1825, after his return from a trip to themselves as patrons of the arts only to assail the government
England. They are identical in format, and they function with a reproach as commonplace as it is unfair, namely, that
formally and iconographically as pendants. Both illustrate it was not encouraging the arts.”63 Was the clever Forbin’s
episodes from medieval history as recounted in literature, in quibble intended to legitimize the acquisition? And did
particular, Pierre de Bourdeille Brantôme’s Les vies des dames Forbin mean to extricate himself from a difficult situation or
galantes. These brilliantly painted and intensely colored from real danger?64 Whatever the case, the episode aptly
works, their material effects rendered in virtuoso fashion, illustrates the competition between the state and the market.
appealed to admirers of minor historical subjects whose tastes Given that Delacroix created a work for the Salon with
had been shaped by the troubadour paintings of the Empire. the idea that its purchase would remedy his financial situation
Delacroix was inspired in this vein by his friend Richard and, above all, secure his standing, it is highly probable
Parkes Bonington, who was producing this very kind of paint- that he gave some thought to the private market. In view of
ing at the time. For collectors, the licentiousness of The Duke Forbin’s haste to acquire Massacres at Chios as soon as the
of Orléans Showing His Lover would have enhanced its appeal: Salon opened—probably before the controversy got out of
the duke, uncovering the lower half of his mistress’s body hand—one may legitimately ask whether and to what extent
while concealing the rest, exhibits her to her husband, who the sympathetic official might have advised Delacroix. The
fails to recognize her. There may have been personal reminis- fact remains that the strategy implemented by the artist was,
cences behind the painting: in 1822–23, Delacroix shared once again, remarkably effective. The painting, exhibited at
a mistress, Madame Louise Rossignol de Pron, with his the Salon’s opening and purchased shortly thereafter by the
friend Soulier. museum administration, was the object of everyone’s attention
The evolving private art market, over which the state had and elicited particularly violent reactions.
little control, was not only for small paintings. In particular, as
Elisabeth Fraser has shown, the duc d’Orléans (the future king
Louis-Philippe), with his semipublic gallery at the Palais Scenes from the Massacres at Chios
Royal, was making his mark as a collector of the most modern
expressions of contemporary art.62 Might Delacroix, who in In elaborating a contemporary subject on a monumental scale,
1828 would receive a commission from the duke for Cardinal the painter reminded spectators of the scandal caused by
Richelieu Saying Mass in the Chapel of the Palais-­Royal (destroyed Théodore Gericault’s Raft of the Medusa at the Salon of 1819.
in 1848), have hoped for the duke’s patronage if the state Yet few Salon critics concerned themselves with the work’s
refused to purchase Massacres at Chios? One indication sug- subject matter. Conversely, its execution was denounced so
gests that he did. Despite the scandal caused by the unveiling vehemently that Massacres at Chios soon came to be called a
of Massacres at Chios at the Salon, the comte de Forbin, disre- “massacre of painting.” It is not incidental that this epithet may
garding administrative procedure and without awaiting the have originated with Gros, whom Delacroix would describe
king’s signature, arranged to have the state purchase that in 1846, in an article on the painter Pierre P­ aul Prud’hon, as
painting and a few others not after the Salon ended, as custom “that son of Rubens who had the sad courage to hold out
required, but as it opened. Granted, King Louis XVIII was in a against all the magic toward which he was secretly inclined.”65
very bad way. It is therefore possible that Forbin, as the direc- Delacroix, for his part, boldly confronted the expressive
tor of museums and an ardent supporter of youthful innova- power of the paint, which he had discovered, at least in part,
tion, wished to speed up the works’ acquisition in anticipation in Gros and in Rubens.
of Charles X’s accession to the throne. Forbin responded The massacre of Chios became the massacre of painting.
somewhat impertinently to the vicomte Sosthènes de La The semantic slippage from the painting’s subject to its form

18 DELACROIX
reduced the public’s apprehension of the painting to its mate- recalled memories of Gros’s Napoleon Visiting the Plague Victims
riality, the dimension Delacroix had pondered constantly of Jaffa (1804; Musée du Louvre), a painting withdrawn
while painting it. As Marie Mély-­Janin exclaimed in horror, from public view during the Bourbon Restoration because it
“Everything here is harsh, coarse, rocky, rough, scruffy. Is it depicted Bonaparte, but which Delacroix had probably seen
paint, or is it glue or putty? . . . Monsieur Delacroix rushes on a visit to Gros’s studio at the close of the Salon of 1822.72
headlong without rules, without moderation; he piles on the The vagueness of the perceived plague theme may have
color, he paints with a housepainter’s brush.”66 The critic’s diminished the political value of Delacroix’s canvas. Thiers
vocabulary echoed the very words Delacroix had used when explained that the confusion regarding the painting’s subject
describing the painting in his Journal a few weeks earlier. The stemmed from the artist’s failure to depict the right moment,
severity of the attack indicates the degree to which the paint- that of the massacre itself. In rejecting unity of action, he did
ing appeared shocking and transgressive to the artist’s contem- not “compose a principal scene.” “M. Delacroix attempted to
poraries. In 1824 his position was too radical to be easily rival the randomness of nature. He therefore threw down his
understood. The critics, taken aback by the display of form, characters here and there, and no one knows how they could
the large brushstrokes, the surface effects, the extraordinary be in the place where they are.”73 Although the work’s con-
richness of color, and the abundant impasto in the foreground, struction may have seemed faulty at the time, Thiers put his
did not make the connection—the famous “bridge”—between finger on one of the strong points of the painting as it is now
the harshness of the technique and the horror of the subject. perceived: the viewer’s brutal confrontation with the spread-­
Nonetheless, Delacroix invited them to do so in the entry he out bodies, which form a kind of wall across the bottom third
wrote for the Salon catalogue: “Scenes of the massacres of of the canvas. Their pain and the manner in which they are
Chios. Greek families awaiting death or slavery (see the vari- painted stand in contradiction to the vast landscape that fills
ous accounts and newspapers of the time).” Going against the the remaining two-thirds of the composition.
conventions of Neoclassical history painting, he rejected the The critic Charles Paul Landon expressed this view with
use of dramatic argument, painting what in the language of utter clarity: “Instead of a carefully organized composition
the theater is called a tableau, rather than a scene.67 Viewers conforming to [accepted] artistic principles, one finds only a
must allow themselves to be won over by sensations engen- confused assemblage of figures, or rather half-­figures, since
dered by an intentionally chaotic technique. The critic none is developed completely. And the scene is so thoroughly
Auguste Chauvin felt this in spite of himself. Like Mély-­Janin, obstructed that one does not glimpse the possibility of pene-
he launched a diatribe against the canvas, condemning the trating beyond the foreground.”74 That effect, already percep-
“barbaric painter whose out-­of-­control imagination gives birth tible in The Barque of Dante, stems in part from the way the
only to hideous wounds, contortions, agony, and who is artist conceived his painting on the basis of models rather than
always afraid he won’t spill enough blood or cause enough adhering to a strictly defined composition. In fact, the rigid
agony.”68 Blinded by his disgust for the work, did Chauvin figures seem to be juxtaposed: highly differentiated in typol-
really look at the composition? In fact, the artist showed ogy, age, and even skin color, they correspond to iconographic
almost nothing of the horror of the battles, which take place topoi (mother and child, lovers, two children, an old woman).
in the distance, in a radiant landscape. What horror is shown It is as if the bodies’ presence should suffice to tell the story:
is conveyed entirely by the materiality of the painting; it lies in an individual hero, such as the one Delacroix had considered
the viewer’s imagination, sparked by the absence of narration. painting in 1821, is no longer needed. At the same time, the
No analysis of the work can separate the subject from the relationship between individual and collective histories is
execution, as was done in Neoclassical criticism: the subject played out in the tension between the topos, which gives rise
resides largely in the execution.69 to discrete, personal stories, and the stereotypical character of
Many did not understand Massacres at Chios and, like the figures. Yet, this tension, which results in part from
Stendhal and Thiers, likened it to a plague scene. “This work Delacroix’s method of developing the composition directly
always seems to me a painting intended to represent a plague,” from the model, obstructs the narrative, as Thiers observed.
Stendhal wrote.70 Thiers noted that “everyone without excep-
tion has taken this massacre for a plague.”71 This association Following pages: FIG. 5 Scenes from the Massacres at Chios, 1824, detail

“FAME IS NOT AN EMPTY WORD”: 1822–32 19

“Dolce Chiavatura” role merely of a fragment of reality to be transfigured on the
canvas. “Today I drew and painted in the head and breast, etc.
If we follow the genesis of Massacres at Chios as it is recorded of the dead woman in the foreground.” He added: “I again
in Delacroix’s Journal, we find that models were, in fact, its had la mia chiavatura dinanzi colla mia carina Emilia. It in no
inspiration and, as with The Barque of Dante, that the work was way dampened my enthusiasm. You have to be young for this
elaborated from them. Although the artist executed a water- kind of life. Everything is now painted in except for the hand
color study setting out the main lines of the composition and the hair.”76 Delacroix used the term chiavatura to refer to
(fig. 6), he proceeded to paint it figure by juxtaposed figure, sexual intercourse. Although artists often had such relations
with the model before his eyes each time. Delacroix began with models, for Delacroix, while he was working on Massacres
the painting in earnest on Monday, January 12, 1824. On at Chios, there was a close connection between erotic relation-
January 18, he noted, “Yesterday, Saturday, and the day before ships and artistic creation. Their inextricability is conveyed
yesterday, Friday, did part of the woman front and center or even in the way he relates the episode, which is far from an
the preliminaries for her. . . . I had a certain Provost, a model, isolated event. The reference to sex appears without transition
on Tuesday the 13th, and began with the head of the dying in the middle of the description of his work, as if painting the
man front and center.”75 On Sunday, February 29, he wrote: hair and the hands, among the most sensual of anatomical
“did the other young man in the corner, based on little details, were the direct consequence of the sexual act.
Nassau, and gave him three francs.” On April 27, he painted Delacroix needed to possess his models in order to paint them.
the dead woman and her child based on “Mme Clément and On January 26, he saw Emilie again: “For three studio
her child.” And so on. The entry of January 24 is particularly sessions I gave Emilie Robert twelve francs . . . I had a nice
interesting because it shows that the model did not play the chiavata.”77 And on March 3, he wrote: “Emilie dropped in
for a moment and I took full advantage; this made me feel a
little better. Work hard at your picture. Think about Dante.
Reread him. Shake a leg, keep at it to keep your mind on great
ideas. How will I profit from my near-­solitude if I have only
commonplace ideas?”78 And five days later: “did the head and
torso of the young girl attached to the horse.—Dolce chiava-
tura.”79 On April 18, he mentioned a woman named Laure and
once again associated his ardor for his work with the expres-
sion of sexual desire, which vanished at the end of the session:
“At the studio by nine. Laure came. Made progress on the
portrait. It is strange that, having desired her all during the
session, as she was leaving, in quite a hurry actually, it wasn’t
quite the same. I suppose I needed time to collect myself.”80
On April 20, he mentioned a certain Hélène: “The girl came
this morning to pose. Hélène slept or pretended to. I don’t
know why I stupidly thought I had to act like an admirer. But
no attraction there. I used the excuse of a headache. . . . As
she was leaving and it was too late, the wind had changed.”81
This description brings to mind a study of a reclining nude
(cat. 18): first identified—but without evidence—by Alfred
Robaut as Mlle Rose, she could be the sleeping Hélène.
Again on May 28, Delacroix wrote: “In the last few days
Study for Scenes from the Massacres at Chios, 1823/24. Graphite,
FIG. 6
I have resumed my painting wholeheartedly. I worked on
watercolor, and gouache on paper, 133/8 x 1113/16 in. (34 x 30 cm). Musée adjusting the dead woman. To a woman who came with a
du Louvre, Paris (RF 3717 recto) child—one franc. In the morning Laure came; she and the

22 DELACROIX
 CAT. 18 Reclining Female Nude: Back View, ca. 1824–26

chiavatura—five fr.—Also yesterday, another with la nera.”82

The magnificent watercolor depicting an unmade bed (fig. 7),
which refers both to the pose and to the sexual encounter, is
the symbol of that dual relationship with the model. She is a
source of inspiration and also an object of desire, or a source
of inspiration inasmuch as she is an object of desire.
An evolution had occurred in Delacroix’s conception of
the nude from the time of his formative years to his recent,
more personal works. The earliest studies, some of which
were probably executed in Guérin’s studio, respect the proto-
col of the academy figure frozen in a conventional, at times
rhetorical pose (cat. 1).83 Mademoiselle Rose (see cat. 2),
viewed frontally, is seated with her ankles crossed; she rests
her upper body on her left arm; her other arm is raised. The Unmade Bed, ca. 1825–28. Graphite, watercolor, and brown wash on
FIG. 7
model’s right arm was undoubtedly supported by a rope to paper, 71/4 x 113/4 in. (18.5 x 29.9 cm). Musée du Louvre, Paris (RF 31720)

“FAME IS NOT AN EMPTY WORD”: 1822–32 23

 CAT. 1 Male Academy Figure: Half-Length, Side View, ca. 1818–20

enable her to hold the pose. The figure’s face is shown in

profile, her eyes modestly lowered. By contrast, in the studies
Delacroix did in his own studio, he depicted the desire and
sexual availability of half-­dressed women, often with their
breasts exposed, facing the painter (fig. 8).
The distinctive presence of the model in Delacroix’s early
works, though it may sometimes undermine the painting’s unity,
as Landon remarked, is much more significant than it appears at
first glance. During those years, the model was the fulcrum
around which the artist was able to revitalize history painting by
challenging Neoclassical composition. Within the Neoclassical
system, the idea had primacy. Once the idea for a painting had
been established, the artist would copy works of antiquity and
works by the masters before bringing his composition to life
FIG. 8 Female Nude Reclining on a Divan, or Woman with White Stockings,
by means of a live model. Conversely, Delacroix began with
ca. 1825–26. Oil on canvas, 101/4 x 13 in. (26 x 33 cm). Musée du Louvre, the model, then saw how he would compose the work. This
Paris (RF 1657) (J 7) was the method he used for The Barque of Dante (fig. 2).

24 DELACROIX
 CAT. 7 Head of an Old Greek Woman, 1824 FIG. 9Orphan Girl in the Cemetery, 1824. Oil on canvas, 2513/16 x 217/16 in.
(65.5 x 54.5 cm). Musée du Louvre, Paris (RF 1652) (J 78)

Working from life drawings (the models for the damned main- and expressive autonomy of a real model. The Greek youth is
tained their poses with the help of ropes), he transferred the not only a study of the expression of an emotion but also an
figures to the canvas and then, recognizing an imbalance in the actual embodiment of a story, a destiny.
composition, changed their positions.84 In a sense, the choice
of works he exhibited at the Salon of 1824 was emblematic of
that method. Alongside the Massacres at Chios, Delacroix dis- Flesh and the Nude
played two studies that were listed under the same number in
the Salon catalogue, but without descriptions. In all likelihood, By beginning with a man or woman who posed for him rather
these were Head of an Old Greek Woman (cat. 7) and Orphan than a model from antiquity, Delacroix adopted a fundamen-
Girl in the Cemetery (fig. 9), both preliminary oil studies for the tally new relationship to the model, one in which the ideal had
large painting. Orphan Girl (not its original title) portrays a to yield to the expression of a form of realism. The artist was
beggar girl to whom Delacroix alluded in his Journal on now in search not of perfection but of life, as he plainly stated:
February 17, 1824, when he indicated that she was the model for
the figure of the young Greek boy at the far left of the composi- Never seek an empty perfection. Some faults, some
tion. That figure seems to have been the element upon which things which the vulgar call faults, often give vitality to
the entire painting was elaborated. At the same time, it manages a work. My picture is beginning to develop a rhythm, a
to support the painting all on its own, displaying the dramatic powerful spiral momentum. I must make the most of it.

“FAME IS NOT AN EMPTY WORD”: 1822–32 25

 CAT. 2 Female Academy Figure: Seated, Front View (Mademoiselle Rose), ca. 1820–23

I must keep that good black color, that happy, rather Figure: Seated, Front View (Mademoiselle Rose) (cat. 2), which
dirty quality, and those limbs which I know how to portrays a model who was probably nicknamed Rose, the artist
paint and few others even attempt. The mulatto will do was less intent on scrupulously representing anatomy (the
very well. I must get fullness. Even though it loses its foreshortening of the right arm is slightly exaggerated) than
naturalness, it will gain in richness and beauty.85 on rendering the iridescence of feminine flesh tones, which
range from pink to green and then from green to brown. Here
In his studies, the artist attended less to the form and Delacroix captured in a new way the secret of life palpitating
structure of objects and bodies than to their surface and color. beneath the skin and, more particularly, the role of reflections,
The young Delacroix achieved mastery of the color of human which he had learned from Rubens. Especially on the thighs,
bodies through observation and his original conception of the the skin’s material substance is conveyed with hatchings of
most academic of exercises: the nude. In the Female Academy various colors applied with a brush. On an empirical level, this

26 DELACROIX
 CAT. 10 Portrait of Aspasie, ca. 1824

technique anticipates optical mixture, which Delacroix would the painting is midway between a study and a portrait. The size
practice more systematically beginning in the early 1830s. The of the canvas and the pose of the sitter—a woman seated in a
effect was enhanced by the choice of a dark ground, which chair, her gestures subtle, her gaze directed toward the
projects the body forward and accentuates its luminosity. viewer—are consistent with the canons of portraiture. By
An added layer of virtuosity is found in Portrait of Aspasie, contrast, the bare throat and breast were possible within the
painted about 1824, now in the Musée Fabre, Montpellier context of this genre only because Delacroix used a studio
(cat. 10). Delacroix kept the portrait in his studio until late in model, one who was, moreover, a woman of mixed race. The
his career and seems to have accorded it a certain importance: composition therefore plays on an ambiguity: on the one hand,
the model’s first name appears on a list of works the artist the model is idealized, ennobled by the pose; on the other,
entered in his Journal on October 4, 1857.86 Preceded by two her state of undress underscores her inferior status, her subor-
small, highly refined canvases (fig. 10 and private collection), dination to the painter’s artistic and perhaps sexual desire.87

“FAME IS NOT AN EMPTY WORD”: 1822–32 27

FIG. 10Aspasie (Red Background), ca. 1824. Oil on canvas, 105/8 x 87/16 in. Model Wearing a Turban, ca. 1824–26. Pastel on buff paper, 181/2 x 1415/16 in.
FIG. 11
(27 x 21.5 cm). Private collection (J 80) (47 x 38 cm). Musée du Louvre, Paris (RF 32268) (Johnson 1995, no. 14)

There has been speculation about whether the woman in extending the investigation of nonwhite figures previously
the two small studies was the Aspasie depicted in the painting undertaken by his friend Gericault; another example is a
in Montpellier. But there is no question that the same woman pastel study of a dark-­skinned man in a turban (fig. 11).
modeled for all three works. In the study of Aspasie against a In his depictions of Aspasie, Delacroix explored a relatively
red background (fig. 10) the model also shows a bare breast, wide range of pictorial possibilities. The matter at hand was
with the nipple visible, as in the larger painting; and the other evidently to capture the ways in which dark skin reflects light
study (private collection) shows a similar expression in the and to render its texture. He therefore underscored with a
eyes and the hint of a smile. In addition, there is a preliminary darker brown parts of the anatomy, such as the armpits and the
drawing for the painting in which the face is identical to the back of the hand—here given a velvety quality—that are mostly
one in Aspasie (Red Background). The canvas from the Musée ignored in strictly academic nudes. He also played on the
Fabre is thus the idealized version of a model elaborated on contrast between the brown complexion and the intense red
the basis of these two studies. of the lips. A comparison of the three Aspasies shows that he
The work’s originality lies in its treatment of the w
­ oman’s was studying how the face and body interact with a colored
skin color. In the parlance of the time, she was considered ground, which goes from red to green in the painting in
neither altogether black nor white and regarded as sang mêlé, Montpellier. The three versions thus constitute a true study
that is, of mixed blood.88 Delacroix may thus be seen as of color conducted at the same time as Massacres at Chios.

28 DELACROIX
 This manner of treating the nude in terms of its color One may well wonder to what extent young artists of
rather than its structure struck some visitors to the Salon when Delacroix’s generation were driven by the unconscious need
they saw Massacres at Chios. The reviewer for Le globe noted: to approach, by means of a necessary displacement in time
“[Delacroix] has almost, and for no reason, made some and space, the unthinkable in the national past—namely,
bodies green, others yellow, others reddish-­brown; he has massacres. Such a question need not impugn the sincerity of
brought together the most different colorings.”89 The critic that generation’s engagement with contemporary phenomena
thus pointed out the novelty, in that day, of the rendering such as the philhellenic movement. But it was a burning
of diverse flesh tones. Delacroix’s unfortunate Greeks, men question for Delacroix, who was among the direct descen-
and women of flesh and blood, some pale, others tanned, dants of the generation that had actively participated in the
present a striking contrast to the Neoclassical heroes painted events of the Revolution, including the tragic hours of the
by David’s imitators, with their uniforms and marmoreal Reign of Terror. He always proclaimed pride in his father, a
whiteness directly influenced by Greco-­Roman statuary. The deputy and diplomatic emissary at the Convention, whose
painting served as a pictorial manifesto, and it also carried a aura was preserved by his early death. It is significant that the
reflection on history, if not on politics. Delacroix, a “child of anecdote Delacroix recalled most fondly concerned his
the century” who witnessed the fall of the Empire at an early father’s resistance to agitators backed by the most extremist
age, meditated throughout his life on the greatness, decline, elements of the Revolution. He thereby found reassurance
and perpetuation of civilizations. For him, was not the idea of in his father’s supposed moderation. Two other massacres
“mixed blood” a condition for the survival of civilizations? were on view at the Salon of 1824: Léon Cogniet’s Scene from
The diverse skin colors of the Greeks he painted in Massacres the Massacre of the Innocents (Musée des Beaux-­Arts, Rennes)
at Chios have nothing in common with the abstract ideal of and Charles-Emile Callande de Champmartin’s Massacre of
Hellenic purity so vaunted by the Neoclassical writers the Innocents (Louvre). These were followed in 1827 by Ary
and painters. Scheffer’s Souliot Women (Louvre). Other scenes of mass
execution appearing at the Salons of the period are worth
noting: Horace Vernet’s Massacre of the Mamelukes in Cairo in
“Greek Families Awaiting Death or Slavery” 1811 in 1819; and Champmartin’s Massacre of the Janissaries in

With his subject taken from contemporary history, Delacroix

painted not heroes of antiquity but the men, women, and
children of his own time, as the text in the Salon catalogue
indicates: “See the various accounts and newspapers of the
time.” This was not the ideal Greece of Pericles or Leonidas
but the very real Greece, gateway to the Orient, of a people
fighting for their freedom. That historical and (in the strict
sense) embodied vision must have been transgressive at the
time. We have trouble perceiving that quality in the painting
today, but it accounts for audiences’ general blindness to his
subject, which most interpreted as a plague or derided as
“filth.” The philhellenism of Delacroix and some of his con-
temporaries combined political and artistic demands. Auguste
Jal, in his review of the Salon of 1824, became their spokes-
man: “I have had enough of the old Greeks; it’s the modern
Greeks who interest me. . . . Farewell, ancient Greece,
which saw so much bloodshed. . . . Hail to you, Hellenia, Charles-­Emile Callande de Champmartin (French, 1797–1883),
FIG. 12
young and proud, who are stepping out of your cradle in Massacre of the Janissaries, 1826. Oil on canvas, 185/8 x 243/4 in. (47.2 x
ruins, to the cries of fatherland and freedom!”90 62.8 cm). Musée d’Art et d’Histoire, Rochefort (inv. 2007.8.15)

“FAME IS NOT AN EMPTY WORD”: 1822–32 29

1827 (fig. 12). Although Vernet’s and Champmartin’s paintings the door to paintings of fratricidal battles and the mass extermi-
do not portray innocent civilian populations and therefore did nation of ethnic groups, with all the disorder, injustice, terror,
not have the cathartic quality of Delacroix’s painting, they did and ambiguity they suggested. These scenes, with their depic-
swell the ranks of slaughter that assaulted the eyes of visitors to tions of civilian populations, including women and children,
the Salon. These spectacular stagings of massacres in paint exerted a much stronger appeal to emotion. Delacroix’s mon-
possibly satisfied a need for expression and a need to appeal umental work, or grande machine, as it was called, brought
to the collective memory of the French. The Revolution had viewers face to face with the tragedy of the Greeks, who
revived in modern France the ancient practice of massacres formed a kind of fixed wall before them. It also forced behold-
that had bloodied the country during the religious and politi- ers to acknowledge their own responsibility, insofar as the
cal conflicts of the sixteenth century. But in the 1820s, paint- victims seem to have no hope of rescue. Prostrate, they await
ers took their subjects from the Bible or from current events death or slavery, as the Salon catalogue explains. The sparsity
in foreign countries, thus maintaining a certain distance of movement and the action, frozen or relegated to the mar-
through art and exoticism. gins, compel spectators to focus on the bodies and the suffer-
The Empire had permitted the representation of war ing souls, tormented by shame and despair. It is a vision of
only in its disciplined and reputedly civilized forms—con- horror to lead the audience itself to revolt.
frontations between professional armies, preparations for The contrast between the pathos of the scene and the
those encounters (the readying and deployment of forces), luminosity of the landscape, between the coarseness of the
and their aftermaths (battlefield visits, care of the wounded, brushwork in the lower part of the canvas and the delicate
acts of clemency toward prisoners, the signing of peace trea- treatment of the sky, conveys a kind of dereliction that is
ties)—within the highly controlled context of propaganda. expressed in the eyes of the old woman, inspired by Orphan
The liberalization of the art scene in the first years of the Girl in the Cemetery (see fig. 9). Delacroix disconcerted the
Restoration allowed for freer artistic expression, opening Salon audience not only by accumulating a large number of

FIG. 13 A Battlefield, Evening, 1824. Oil on canvas, 187/8 x 221/4 in. (48 x 56.6 cm). The FIG. 14Théodore Gericault (French, 1791–1824). Wounded
Mesdag Collection, The Hague (inv. hwm 0112) (J 104) Cuirassier, 1814. Oil on canvas, 11 ft. 1815/16 in. x 9 ft. 73/4 in.
(3.6 x 3 m). Musée du Louvre, Paris (4886)

30 DELACROIX
 FIG. 15 Turkish Officer Killed in the Mountains, or The Death of Hassan, 1826. Oil on canvas, 13 x 161/8 in. (33 x 41 cm).
Private collection (J 113)

wretched human figures and emptying out the central zone, perhaps, an apt expression of dismay in the face of such pow-
normally the place of the hero. He caused astonishment also erlessness. The absence of a divine miracle or any other tran-
by extending the background to a far-­distant horizon, thus scendence makes more urgent the call to others—namely,
tapping into a different pictorial subgenre: the topographical viewers at the Salon—for help. The painting plays on the
battle painting, of the type exemplified by Louis François cathartic effect of a contemporary tragedy.
Lejeune during the Empire. The artful spatial arrangement War as seen by Delacroix is at odds with the heroic
provided Delacroix a high vantage point overlooking one end vision still present in Gericault; in Massacres at Chios, war has
of the island. The landscape unfolds across fields and farms no panache. Delacroix’s A Battlefield, Evening (fig. 13), realized
punctuated by palm trees before ending at a city on a bay, during the same period, was inspired by Gericault’s Wounded
with a port at its edge. Fires on land and at sea attest to the Cuirassier (fig. 14), exhibited at the Salon of 1814. But where
ubiquity of fighting and destruction. Sea and sky, undisturbed Gericault transfigured the despair of defeat and the soldier’s
by vertical intrusions (trees, rocks, masts), occupy a third of isolation into heroism, Delacroix presented the spectacle of
the painted surface. The sky is astonishingly empty and flat, disillusionment: all is desolation. In Gericault’s painting, the
traversed only by long trails of cloud: it is two-­dimensional, cuirassier is the unfortunate double of the groom attempting
motionless, and uninvolved with the action on the ground. to restrain one of the two Horses of Marly (1745; Musée du
The merciless indifference of nature signals the immanence of Louvre), but he is still in control of his mount.91 In A Battlefield,
human despair. The artist took the opposite course from that Evening, by contrast, the soldier crawls, pitiable and alone,
of his model, Gros’s Napoleon Visiting the Plague Victims of Jaffa, amid the cadavers of horses, in mud and blood. Blood is also
in which Bonaparte seems to rise up like a magician from the found in the foreground of Massacres at Chios, especially on
tragedy under way. The allusion by some critics to a plague, the Christlike figure in the center of the composition. Two
though it obviously brings to mind Gros’s masterpiece, is also, years later, for an exhibition at Galerie Lebrun held as a

“FAME IS NOT AN EMPTY WORD”: 1822–32 31

 Combat of the Giaour and the Pasha, 1827. Lithograph, first state of two, with remarques, sheet 16 x 11 in.
FIG. 16
(40.6 x 27.9 cm). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, John J. McKendry Fund, 1996
(1996.424) (D-­S 55)

32 DELACROIX
CAT. 27 Combat of the Giaour and Hassan, 1826

“FAME IS NOT AN EMPTY WORD”: 1822–32 33

benefit for the Greeks, Delacroix displayed Turkish Officer Delacroix added vibrant touches of red, black, and yellow to
Killed in the Mountains, or The Death of Hassan (fig. 15). The his Massacres at Chios, which he probably considered too
corpse, dressed in a magnificent uniform, lies abandoned monochrome and lacking in homogeneity. He thereby gave it
while a village burns in the background, as in Massacres at more brilliance.
Chios. The unusual nature of this representation, centered on Delacroix, in his ardor to take up brushes and paint,
a corpse, was pointed out in Ludovic Vitet’s contemporaneous neglected the tedious academic work of preparing the compo-
critique, which classified the painting as a study.92 sition. Such preparation typically required, after the overall
For a second time, Delacroix had gambled and won. composition had been defined in a sketch, a careful, separate
His stature was reinforced by the royal museums’ acquisition study (drawn, or sometimes painted) for each of the important
of Massacres at Chios, but the critics were harsh, and for the elements (heads, limbs, principal accessories), which were
most part they did not understand the painting. The painter then transposed by means of a grid and assembled on the can-
François ­Joseph Navez, a student of David’s in Brussels, vas, to be executed in oil. Once his painting was completed,
summed up the situation in a letter to his fellow artist Louis Delacroix became aware of the dangers of his own virtuosity,
Léopold Robert: “The Massacre at Chios is only an intention, the risks inherent in his way of composing on the basis of
it is neither drawn nor painted, but it is impossible to give a “beautiful pieces” painted directly on the canvas. In reeval­
more accurate idea of misfortune. . . . All of that is character- uating the execution phase of his creative process, he wrote,
ized so well that it penetrates; there is originality in the color. “I must make many sketches and take my time. That above
He will go far if he studies, but he will lose his way if he all is where I need to make progress. . . . The main thing is
continues on this path.”93 When Navez indicated that the to avoid that infernal facility of the brush. Instead, make the
painting was only an intention, he was likely referring to medium difficult to work with, like marble—that would be
the absence of unity, which was caused partly by the young completely new. Make the medium resistant, so as to conquer
artist’s method of composing his paintings on the basis of the it patiently” (see fig. 104).98
model. It appears that Delacroix was highly sensitive to that
frequently made criticism of his work. Had he himself not
recognized this flaw? His Journal entries on the genesis of Lessons from England: The Merging of Genres
Massacres at Chios document his distress over the fragmenta-
tion of the scene and the difficulty he had in putting together The conquering strategy that Delacroix had employed suc-
the various pieces, painted brilliantly but in isolation. He cessfully since 1822 would attain its highest achievement at the
began to execute the figures in early 1824, and toward the end Salon of 1827–28. His career up until that moment was summa-
of March he worried about the “disjointedness” of the work rized by Charles Paul Landon as follows:
under way. On May 9, 1824, he noted: “My painting is begin-
ning to take on a different appearance; disjointedness is M. Delacroix made his debut in the fine arts at the
giving place to sombreness. . . . I am changing the plan.”94 moment most favorable to him. Twenty years earlier,
Following his own advice, he resumed reading Dante. his works would have caused only unwelcome aston-
A few weeks later, while visiting the Paris art dealer ishment; they might have been spurned by the pub-
John Arrowsmith, Delacroix saw five canvases by the English lic. . . . Perhaps the jury would not even have accepted
painter John Constable, including his famous Hay Wain them for the Salon. Today, by contrast, M. Delacroix
(1821; National Gallery, London).95 According to Théophile has champions and proselytes, admirers, copiers. The
Silvestre, Delacroix was so struck by these paintings that he judges awarded him a medal of encouragement at the
retouched his own composition.96 Frédéric Villot wrote in Salon of 1824. He has gained a following; he is praised,
1856 that, at the time, “he made the light denser, introduced supported. He is entrusted with major projects.99
rich gray tones, gave transparency to the shadows through the
use of glazes, made the blood circulate and the flesh quiver.”97 Delacroix, now recognized, was determined to show the
Whatever the exact influence of the British painter and the range of his talent. He presented the jury with seventeen
precise time when this retouching took place, a virtuoso paintings. Four were rejected, including his portrait of a

34 DELACROIX
CAT. 87 Combat of the Giaour and Hassan, 1835

35
 friend, Louis‑Auguste Schwiter (see cat. 30), and Combat of the
Giaour and Hassan (cat. 27), inspired by Lord Byron, which he
treated in a contemporary lithograph (fig. 16) and whose
subject he returned to in a painting nine years later (cat. 87).
The following were accepted: a portrait, Count Demetrius de
Palatiano (1794–1849) in Suliot Costume (see cat. 25); two
public commissions, Christ in the Garden of Olives (The Agony
in the Garden) (see cat. 17), awarded by the prefecture of the
Seine for the church of Saint-­Paul-­Saint-­Louis, and Emperor
Justinian, for the halls of the Conseil d’Etat at the Louvre
(destroyed in 1871; see cat. 28); a contemporary subject, Scene
from the War between the Turks and the Greeks; literary subjects,
The Execution of Doge Marino Faliero (exhibited the previous
year at Galerie Lebrun) (fig. 25), Faust in His Study, and Milton
Dictating “Paradise Lost” to His Daughters; Oriental subjects,
Head Study of an Indian Woman100 and Young Turk Stroking His
Horse;101 an animal subject, Two English Farm Horses;102 and
genre subjects, Mortally Wounded Brigand Quenches His Thirst
(cat. 22), painted for Alexandre Du Sommerard, and Still Life
CAT. 28 Justinian Drafting His Laws, sketch, 1826 with Lobsters (fig. 17).

CAT. 22 Mortally Wounded Brigand Quenches His Thirst, ca. 1825

36 DELACROIX
FIG. 17 Still Life with Lobsters, 1826–27. Oil on canvas, 311/2 x 413/4 in. (80 x 106 cm). Musée du Louvre, Paris (RF 1661) (J 161)

With the rejected portrait of Schwiter, the accepted César Cyr du Coëtlosquet, is somewhere between a still life
portrait of the count de Palatiano, and Still Life with Lobsters, and a landscape painting, with a hunting scene added in the
the artist’s repertoire had broadened. He was making incur- background. An homage to both the seventeenth-­century
sions into the minor genres, a process that would continue Flemish and Dutch masters and the most modern landscape
at the Salon of 1831 with Young Tiger Playing with Its Mother artists, with sky effects visibly inspired by Constable, the
(Study of Two Tigers) (see cat. 67). Delacroix had come under painting flaunts its incongruity. Fresh game from a hunt lies
the influence of British art after seeing the paintings of on the ground next to cooked lobsters, traditionally shown on
Constable and Sir Thomas Lawrence exhibited at the Salon of kitchen tables, and a salamander scuttles out of the still life.
1824 and in England, which he visited in 1825 on the advice Delacroix, wishing primarily to display his virtuosity in ren-
of his friend Thales Fielding (cat. 13). Assimilating that influ- dering matter with color, was playing with clichés: perhaps he
ence in an original way, he began painting works in which was alluding to the four elements. He treated these tropes
different genres were combined. Still Life with Lobsters (fig. 17), with a certain ironic offhandedness, as he himself remarked to
com­missioned for the dining room of General Charles Yves his friend Soulier: “I completed the general’s animal painting

“FAME IS NOT AN EMPTY WORD”: 1822–32 37

 CAT. 13 Thales Fielding (1793–1837), ca. 1824–25 CAT. 29 Baron Schwiter (Louis Auguste Schwiter,
1805–1889), 1826

and dug up a rococo frame for it, which I am having regilded. the ostensibly relaxed poses of Thomas Lawrence’s sitters,
It will do the trick. It has already made quite a splash with a Delacroix preferred a formality that dates back to the origins of
load of art lovers, and I think it will be amusing at the Salon.”103 the aristocratic portrait. The model’s strict frontality is affected;
With the portrait of his friend Louis Auguste Schwiter, his attitude is slightly ill at ease, a combination of naturalness
son of a marshal of the Empire who became a baron in 1808, and artifice. In an effort to represent not so much his friend’s
Delacroix attempted to combine a portrait with landscape psychology as the idea of refined elegance, the artist played on
painting (cats. 29, 30). The canvas, probably begun in 1826, a the expressive distortions of a very slender body with overly
few weeks after he returned from London, conveys the per- long arms. The impact of the clothing and pose competes with
sonal, French manner in which Delacroix reinterpreted British and even masks Schwiter’s personality and sexual proclivities.
portraiture. Schwiter exhibited the Anglomania of a dandy and The model’s attire is studiously stylish: in his black suit
lived in luxury in Paris. The choice of an “English-­style” repre- with its pinched waist, his long trousers (an invention of the
sentation of Schwiter standing in a garden setting therefore famous Beau Brummel), his leather gloves and patent leather
seemed a fitting way to express his character. Leaving aside pumps, he seems dressed for a ball rather than a walk in the

38 DELACROIX
CAT. 30 Louis Auguste Schwiter (1805–1889), 1826–27

39
 CAT. 25 Count Demetrius de Palatiano (1794–1849)
in Suliot Costume, ca. 1825–26

park. Delacroix pushed the conventions of the English-­style or whether the figure is inserted bizarrely into his environ-
portrait to their limits in this work—especially the relation- ment. We know that Demetrius de Palatiano, an aristocrat
ship between figure and ground—to express the artificiality from Corfu, enjoyed parading in the center of Paris wearing
of the dandy’s attitude. The same is true for the portrait of the sumptuous attire of his homeland, deliberately flouting
Demetrius de Palatiano (cat. 25), in which the exoticism of the Western fashions. In the context of the philhellenic move-
outfit is reinforced by the surroundings of an English land- ment of the time, which was stimulated by the writings of
scape garden, with its minuscule promenading figures, and by Byron and embraced by Delacroix, the extravagant count was
the count’s conventional pose, proudly struck, one foot in met with astonishment and admiration—and he made the
front of the other. The question is whether the surroundings most of it. Schwiter, with his extreme elegance, did the same.
are at odds with the figure, serving merely as a theatrical set, The vaunting of fancy dress at the expense of “natural”

40 DELACROIX
 CAT. 4 Self-Portrait as Ravenswood, ca. 1821–24

expressiveness derives partly from masquerade, the vogue for whose response to his early reversal of fortune may be read in
disguises, which is present also in Delacroix’s Self-­Portrait as the nobility of his pose. Edgar Ravenswood is the protagonist
Ravenswood (cat. 4), and in his appearances at masked balls, of The Bride of Lammermoor, a novel by Sir Walter Scott, pub-
which, according to Alexandre Dumas, he attended dressed as lished in 1819 and very much in vogue at the time. The young
Dante. With the exception of Palatiano, who intentionally nobleman loses fortune and property when his father dies, as
played up his natural “strangeness,” these masquerades Delacroix did in the early 1820s with the catastrophic settle-
involved borrowed identities, designed to highlight one ment of his mother’s estate.104 Delacroix had read The Bride of
aspect of the model’s personality, but not more. Lammermoor and identified with the story. Might not the por-
Self-­Portrait as Ravenswood is both a portrait of a literary trait of Schwiter, dignified and majestic in its way, and with its
hero and an allusion to the financial difficulties of the artist, imposing format, express a certain convivial irony toward the

“FAME IS NOT AN EMPTY WORD”: 1822–32 41

 CAT. 67 Young Tiger Playing with Its Mother (Study of Two Tigers), 1830

artist’s friend, a Frenchman who posed in English-­style finery? understanding the status of the work within the traditional
Revealing the subject’s dandyism as an assumed identity, the hierarchy of genres. Although presented to the Salon jury
work discloses the artificiality of the young man’s pretentions. under the title “Young Tiger Playing with Its Mother,” which
The dignity found in the Schwiter portrait was also was probably proposed by the artist, it appears in the cata-
present in a painting shown at the Salon of 1831, the imposing logue as “Study of Two Tigers.” The second formulation is
Young Tiger Playing with Its Mother (cat. 67). As indicated by clearly inadequate. The confusion stemmed from the fact that
Delacroix’s many renderings in graphic media of domestic in heroizing the animal, Delacroix dispensed with narrative
cats, tigers, and lions (cats. 60, 62, 63, 65, 66), the artist had a and dramatic action: there is no hunt, no tiger attacking a wild
particular predilection for felines. This enormous work is one horse (cats. 57, 58), no horse frightened by a storm, as in
of a kind in his oeuvre partly because of its monumental the watercolor at the Szépművészeti Múzeum in Budapest
format, which is close to that of a history painting, and partly (fig. 18; see also cat. 59). The subject is made heroic by a
because of the calmness of the image. Contemporaries were composition that, rather than seeking to capture the savage
disturbed by the unexpected scale of this animal painting. energy of nature, proffers analogies between the animal king-
A change in its title points to the difficulty they had in dom and humanity. Young Tiger Playing with Its Mother is, in

42 DELACROIX
 CAT. 62 Nineteen Studies of Heads and Skulls of Lions, ca. 1828–30

CAT. 60 Studies of a Lion, from Sketchbook with Views of Tours, CAT. 63 Tiger Lying at the Entrance of Its Lair, ca. 1828–30
France and Its Environs, 1828–29

“FAME IS NOT AN EMPTY WORD”: 1822–32 43

 CAT. 65 Royal Tiger, 1829

CAT. 57 Wild Horse Felled by a Tiger, 1828 CAT. 58 Wild Horse Felled by a Tiger, 1828

44 DELACROIX
 CAT. 66 Lion of the Atlas Mountains, 1829–30

CAT. 59 Wild Horse, 1828 FIG. 18 Horse Frightened by a Storm, ca. 1825–29. Watercolor on paper, 91/4 x
125/8 in. (23.5 x 32 cm). Szépművészeti Múzeum, Budapest (inv. 1935-­2698)

“FAME IS NOT AN EMPTY WORD”: 1822–32 45

 FIG. 19 Head of a Cat, ca. 1824–29.
Watercolor with gum arabic on paper,
65/16 x 59/16 in. (16 x 14.2 cm). Musée du
Louvre, Paris (RF 794)

CAT. 61 Sketches of Tigers and Men in Sixteenth-Century Costume, ca. 1828–29

46 DELACROIX
fact, a portrait. The nobility of the mother tiger’s pose is akin
to Schwiter’s rather remote haughtiness (see cat. 30); the
dandy resembles the feline. Some critics would, in fact, find
fault with Delacroix for rendering the animals’ expressions
more accurately than those of men: “That unusual artist has
never painted a man who looks like a man in the way his tiger
looks like a tiger,” wrote the editor of the Journal des artistes.105
There is a similar anthropomorphism in the Louvre’s Head of a
Cat (fig. 19). The profile pose, recalling the portraits of great
men found on ancient coins and medallions (see cat. 21), is
here adapted to a feline. In these works, Delacroix seems to
reverse theories of physiognomy: rather than likening man
to an animal, he highlights an animal’s resemblance to man.
The large painting owes its originality to the artist’s close
observation of animals and a notion of the animal kingdom
marked by the quarrel between the naturalists Georges Cuvier
and Geoffroy Sainte-­Hilaire. Just as the Louvre was a place
where the young Delacroix could freely study the old masters
and thereby emancipate himself from academic precepts, the
Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle, located in the Jardin des
Plantes in Paris, offered him the opportunity to examine
and draw live animals, particularly wild creatures difficult to
see elsewhere (see cat. 60). On his regular visits there, he CAT. 48 Faust, plate 9: Mephistopheles Introduces
was also able to study the skinned corpses of animals, includ- Himself at Martha’s House, 1827
ing that of Admiral Rigny’s famous lion. In 1829, Delacroix
and the sculptor Antoine Louis Barye studied that specimen
by lamplight in an effort to understand the function of every We may wonder whether a self-­portrait of the painter might
muscle. The painter’s work on skinned animals and feline have slipped into the improbable cat’s head. (Only a few
remains can be discerned in works from 1829 and 1830. Young years later, Charles Baudelaire would compare Delacroix to a
Tiger Playing with Its Mother was preceded by several water­ tiger.) The similarities between man and animal in the painter’s
colors and ink wash drawings of tigers at rest (for example, understanding of the species are easily identifiable in the
cat. 61), their heads lowered to the ground between their marginalia of some of the Faust engravings. In Mephistopheles
front paws. That position, found also in the lithograph Royal Introduces Himself at Martha’s House (cat. 48), the attitude of
Tiger (cat. 65), is reminiscent of a skinned tiger drawn in one Mephistopheles, his back rounded, echoes that of the seated
of the artist’s notebooks now in the Louvre. In the painting, lion in the lower left corner of the sheet. From an expressive
Delacroix righted his model’s upper body in such a way that it standpoint, it appears that the association between the tempter
holds its head erect—with anthropomorphic nobility. and the lion signals a natural savagery behind Mephistopheles’s
According to the nineteenth-­century critic and historian obsequious attitude. The presence of felines all around the
Hippolyte Taine, Delacroix was especially struck by the fact that image, either watchful or at rest, was a technical experiment,
the “lion’s front leg was the huge arm of a man, but twisted and but it introduced a disturbing atmosphere very much in
turned backward,” and that “there were in all human forms more keeping with the subject. A similar expressive association can
or less vague animal forms that had to be teased out.” The artist be found in a superb preliminary sheet for The Death of
is said to have gone even further, claiming that, on the basis of Sardanapalus: a dog’s terrifying maw in the midst of nude women
these forms, “you manage to discover in [man] the more or less awaiting death embodies the sadistic pleasure the Assyrian king
vague instincts that link his nature to one animal or another.”106 feels as he contemplates the atrocity he has ordered.107

“FAME IS NOT AN EMPTY WORD”: 1822–32 47

FIG. 20 The Death of Sardanapalus, 1826–27. Oil on canvas, 12 ft. 111/2 in. x 16 ft. 27/8 in. (3.9 x 4.9 m). Musée du Louvre, Paris (RF 2346) (J 125)

He Painted with a “Drunken Broom” enormous columns, oversize bed, all thrown down pell-­mell,
without stylistic effects or perspective, and hanging in mid-
The Death of Sardanapalus (fig. 20) was meant to be Delacroix’s air!”108 It was such a disaster that Delacroix called the work
major exhibit at the Salon of 1827, but the painting was not “Massacre No. 2” and the museum administration refused to
ready in time for the opening on November 4. When it finally purchase it. Inspired by Byron’s drama of the same name,
arrived in January 1828, it provoked anger and indignation. Delacroix, perhaps channeling Diodorus Siculus, Byron’s
Charles Paul Landon fumed: “Are we to give the title of com- ancient Roman source, accentuated the dark side. The canvas
position to this incomprehensible hodgepodge of men, was almost unanimously reviled and caused an unprecedented
women, dogs, horses, logs, vases, instruments of every kind, scandal. A deadly orgy depicting the suicide of a king avid for

48 DELACROIX
“FAME IS NOT AN EMPTY WORD”: 1822–32 49
 Sheet of studies for The Death of Sardanapalus, 1827. Chalk and pastel on paper, 173/16 x 2213/16 in. (43.7 x 58 cm). Musée du Louvre, Paris (RF 29665)
FIG. 21
(Johnson 1995, no. 1)

sex and luxury had inspired a wildly bold brush, which a few viewer. All the figures, as Jean-­Pierre Thénot noted in a manual
years later Théophile Gautier would call a “drunken broom.” on perspective, “are drawn from the same place and at the same
The artist flouted the principles of art, decency, and modesty. height, without concern for the horizon in the painting or in
On a giant canvas, the color explodes in a welter of reds and nature.”109 The space overflows with bodies, animals, objects,
golds both sensual and apparently disordered. Here, Delacroix, and jewelry. The unity of the composition is compromised by
in his quest for a modern mode of expressiveness, followed the that accumulation and further undermined by the apparently
path of chromatic overexuberance rather than the exaggeration arbitrary framing. As Ludovic Vitet remarked: “On every side,
of Michelangelesque form, as he had in his Barque of Dante. the meaning is interrupted by the border.”110 The viewer’s gaze,
This homage to Rubens was accompanied by contempt for the disturbed by the distortions in perspective, runs up against the
elementary rules of drawing and composition: the bodies are frame, which imprisons the eye inside the composition.
entangled, distorted, and stretched; a tremendous horse rears Although the work was preceded by many preliminary
up; and the king’s bed, on a diagonal seemingly reminiscent of studies (fig. 21) and an imposing sketch (cat. 31), Delacroix
The Raft of the Medusa, appears to be tipping over onto the again let himself be carried away by the extraordinary

50 DELACROIX
CAT. 31 Death of Sardanapalus, sketch, 1826–27

“FAME IS NOT AN EMPTY WORD”: 1822–32 51

 CAT. 104 The Death of Sardanapalus, 1845–46

52 DELACROIX
impetuousness and virtuosity of his brush and by his attention double. Delacroix was the organizer of the sadistic conflagra-
to detail and the model, developing the composition during tion, the compulsive collector of his own most beautifully
the execution phase as he added in the figures. In February painted elements, which he liked to pile up and spread out in
1849, on a visit to Charles Rivet, a childhood friend to whom precarious equilibrium, at the risk of seeing them collapse and
Delacroix would give the sketch for Sardanapalus, the artist overflow their boundaries. Delacroix filled the composition
explained how the idea for the work had come to him. (By with everything he knew how to paint, everything he had
then, Delacroix had sold the Salon picture, which prompted ardently elaborated in virtuoso studies during his early years:
him to paint a replica for himself; see cat. 104). According to clothing, jewelry, fabrics, babouches, weapons and gold, male
Rivet, the artist had been struck by the ferocious denouement and female nudes, horses, multiple shades of skin (see cats. 9,
of Bryon’s tragedy: the despot, ruler of Nineveh, immolates 11, 12, 14–16, 34; fig. 22). The welter accounts for the impres-
himself along with everything he has loved in order not to be sion of confusion decried by Delécluze, who failed to under-
taken by his enemies. “The scene as he first imagined it was stand that this apparent flaw was meant to render the chaos of
filled with grief and horror.” Rivet’s account conveys the imminent destruction: “The spectator was unable to penetrate
almost hallucinatory quality of literary inspiration, which gives a subject whose every element is isolated, where the eye
birth to a world seemingly composed of phantoms. Indeed, cannot disentangle the confusion of lines and colors.”113
Delacroix had declared in 1824, “What is real for me are the Although he focused his attention on the details,
illusions I create through painting.”111 Delacroix gave some of the figures a new inflection. While
After the moment of inspiration, Delacroix made a wild, the woman in the foreground brilliantly displays the artist’s
dark sketch. When he moved on to the execution, he set out fidelity to the model, and the man with raised arms at the far
to paint one of the half-­nude slave girls from a live model. right along with his desperate companion recall Gros’s natu-
He was then swept up in the seductiveness of imitation and ralistic prototypes in Napoleon Visiting the Plague Victims of Jaffa
“made the opal and gold on the torso palpitate with brilliant and Embarkation of Marie-­Thérèse, Duchess of Angoulême, at
reflections.” The magnificent pastels (including fig. 21) the Pauillac (1818; Musée des Beaux-­Arts, Bordeaux), the faces of
artist realized in the presence of live models confirm Rivet’s Sardanapalus and the women in the background have simplified
concluding statement: “He lost the general tone of the paint- features.114 About 1827, Delacroix, inspired by Moghul manu-
ing in order to preserve what he had done with such verve and scripts, medieval engravings, Indian paintings, and ancient
felicity. Therefore, he gradually modified all the accessories, coins (see cats. 20, 21), sought to stylize his brushstroke. He
and the entire scene took on a completely different effect now insisted on profiles drawn with sharp edges: modeling
from what it was supposed to express at first.”112 This text shows was replaced by linear contours, and the forms became more
the active role that the execution played in Delacroix’s appre- geometric. In that move toward primitivism, he was trying not
hension of the subject. The sensuality of the composition only to imprint an Oriental character on his composition but
resulted from his handling of material substance, a process also, through a more synthetic approach, to free himself from
that modified his initial understanding. His imagination was the tyranny of the model and restore a certain ideality.
sparked during the execution phase: execution is also creation.
In 1849, twenty-one years after exhibiting the work, Delacroix,
now better in control of his craft, criticized the seductiveness Delacroix and the Question of the Hero
of color, as if he had once again yielded to the facility of the
brush, a temptation he had denounced in 1824. “My palette is The image of the ruler of Nineveh, motionless in the midst
no longer what it was. It may be less brilliant, but it no longer of futile turmoil, would be compared to David’s Leonidas at
loses its way. It is an instrument that plays only what I want it Thermopylae (1812; Musée du Louvre).115 Sardanapalus seems to
to play.” Delacroix also observed in 1849 that in 1827 or 1828, be the negative counterpart of Leonidas. David’s masterpiece
the overall spirit of the composition had been altered by the was formidable at the time, one of his few large paintings then
execution of a single element—the body of one of the figures. on view. Another was The Intervention of the Sabine Women (1799;
In a sense, Sardanapalus, both greedy for and detached Musée du Louvre).116 Both were hanging in the Louvre in
from the surging wave of objects and bodies, is the artist’s March 1826, when Delacroix conceived the idea for The Death

“FAME IS NOT AN EMPTY WORD”: 1822–32 53

 CAT. 14 Studies of Bindings, an Oriental Jacket, and Figures after Goya, ca. 1822–26

CAT. 11 Sketch after Goya’s “Caprichos,” ca. 1822–24 CAT. 16 Study of Greek Costumes, ca. 1823–26

54 DELACROIX
FIG. 22Two Studies of a Figure in Greek Costume (Front and Side Views), ca. 1823–26. Oil on canvas, 133/4 x 181/8 in.
(35 x 46 cm). Musée du Louvre, Paris (MNR 143) (J 30)

CAT. 15 Study of an Oriental Vest, ca. 1822–26

“FAME IS NOT AN EMPTY WORD”: 1822–32 55

 CAT. 34 Seated Turk (possibly Paul Barroilhet, 1805–1871),
ca. 1827–30

CAT. 9 Turk Mounting His Horse, 1824 CAT. 12 Study of Babouches, ca. 1823–24

56 DELACROIX
CAT. 20 Studies of Seven Greek Coins, 1825 CAT. 21 Studies of Twelve Greek and Roman Coins, 1825

of Sardanapalus. In formal terms, the Salon painting, in the way it men, women, and children whose bruised bodies display the
violated the rules by making the execution phase visible, struck a pathos of a vanquished resistance. Very often, Delacroix
blow against the Davidian ideal of composition. Furthermore, pushed the hero to the margins of the composition; decen-
even with his first works, Delacroix had challenged the heroism tered, he is under threat of losing his preeminent place. Such
traditionally associated with history painting in general and with is the case in The Battle of Nancy (cat. 69), commissioned by
the exemplum virtutis in particular. Delacroix’s Sardanapalus, the Ministère de l’Intérieur in 1828 for the city of Nancy,
deliberately darker than the figure in Byron’s tragedy, is stylized where the work was to be sent in anticipation of a visit by King
as an egotistical monster, a distant and inaccessible despot in Charles X. The subject, the death of Charles the Bold, was
a pose wavering between indolence and melancholy. Unlike assigned to the artist after consultation with the city’s Société
Leonidas, he is impervious to the unhappiness around him, Royale des Sciences, Lettres et Arts.117 Just as Massacres
which he himself has caused. He is an allegory of immoderation at Chios paid tribute to Gros’s Napoleon Visiting the Plague
and greed, dwarfed by the mad accumulation of living beings Victims of Jaffa, this composition is a reinterpretation of
assembled under his final order and for his own pleasure. He Gros’s Napoleon on the Battlefield of Eylau (fig. 23), which had
appears enigmatic and paradoxical, at once creator, beholder, impressed visitors to the Salon of 1808 with its display of
and destroyer of his own collections. frozen corpses in the foreground. The Battle of Nancy took
Delacroix, a child of the Revolution, witness to the glory place on January 5, 1477, and it inspired in Delacroix the
of empire and the fall of the hero, was a man of his genera- original idea for a field of ice and snow. In the magnificent
tion. As such, he could no longer accept unquestioningly the sketch (fig. 24), he even replicated the topography of the
heroism inherent in history painting. His painting therefore battlefield of Eylau, a feature that Dominique Vivant Denon,
challenged the hero’s unique, positive, unifying, and exem- the director general of museums, had required for the compe-
plary status. Massacres at Chios (fig. 5) even sanctioned the tition Gros won in 1808. Conceived as a vast landscape in
hero’s disappearance in favor of a collective of anonymous which the warm effects of a sky at dusk enter into dialogue

“FAME IS NOT AN EMPTY WORD”: 1822–32 57

 CAT. 69 The Battle of Nancy and the Death of Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, January 5, 1477, 1831

58 DELACROIX
FIG. 23 Antoine Jean Gros (French, 1771–1835). Napoleon on the Battlefield of Eylau,
February 9, 1807, 1808. Oil on canvas, 17 ft. 11/2 in. x 25 ft. 811/16 in. (5.2 x 7.8 m).
Musée du Louvre, Paris (5067)

FIG. 24The Battle of Nancy, sketch, 1828/29. Oil on canvas, 181/2 x 263/4 in.
(47 x 68 cm). Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen (inv. MIN 1905) (J 142)

“FAME IS NOT AN EMPTY WORD”: 1822–32 59

 FIG. 25The Execution of Doge Marino Faliero, 1825–26. Oil on canvas, 575/16 x 4413/16 in.
(145.6 x 113.8 cm). The Wallace Collection, London (inv. P282) (J 112)

with the coldness of the frozen, uneven ground, the painting Council of Ten exhibits the blade—the instrument of justice—
is, effectively, in search of a hero: Charles the Bold is being to the people, who are gathered outside the spectator’s view.
pushed outside the frame, and therefore out of history, by the The composition is devoid of psychology and violent action.
long spear of an anonymous knight. Once again, Delacroix To borrow Auguste Jal’s formulation, the artist “presented the
reversed the conceit of his model, in which the emperor arrives cold denouement of a tragedy whose movements are hidden
as a hero to reestablish order through clemency. from us.”118 The center of the painting is an empty white
The Execution of Doge Marino Faliero (fig. 25) was inspired staircase, an expression of deposed power symbolized by the
by Byron’s tragic drama Marino Faliero, Doge of Venice and was lifeless body that has fallen to the level of the plebs ready to
displayed for the first time in the 1826 exhibition held as a invade the court of the Doge’s Palace. The staircase separates
benefit for the Greeks. In Delacroix’s painting, the doge’s two intensely colored spaces, warmer at the top, cooler at the
decapitated corpse lies at the foot of the stairs, his neck still bottom. The force of history lies not in the body of the hero
on the block, and his head, which has fallen to the ground, executed for high treason but in the accessories, the corno
hidden under a cloth. The executioner turns away from the ducale (ducal hat) and the enormous gold mantle, that have
corpse, while on the balcony above him, a member of the been carried to the top of the steps.

60 DELACROIX
 CAT. 64 The Murder of the Bishop of Liège, 1829

The high stakes of power and death are conveyed by the register is sullied by the doge’s execution below. The result
rhetoric of gesture, which is relegated to the middle ground, is an ambiguous composition in which, to borrow Ludovic
and also by the deployment of textiles—by color. The yellow Vitet’s expression, “jokers will surely say that the main charac-
underside of the blue carpet on which the doge’s corpse lies ter is the staircase.”119 The work undermines the classical rules
mirrors the gold of the ducal robe. The violence of the scene of history painting, which require a clearly expressed moral
is expressed by dabs of red scattered through the composition lesson. Here, a state ceremonial is deprived of a hero.
(the executioner’s cloak, the patricians’ clothing, the men’s The Murder of the Bishop of Liège (cat. 64) is as animated
caps), conjuring blood. As in Massacres at Chios and Greece on as Marino Faliero is static. In this work, inspired by Sir Walter
the Ruins of Missolonghi (see cat. 26), blood is depicted in the Scott’s historical novel Quentin Durward, published in 1823,
foreground, where it streams onto the block and soaks into Delacroix was less interested in the tragic hero than in the
the carpet. The splendor of the fabrics displayed in the upper violent encounter between the bishop, who is being stripped

“FAME IS NOT AN EMPTY WORD”: 1822–32 61

 CAT. 71 Interior of a Dominican Convent in Madrid (L’Amende Honorable), 1831

of his liturgical props, and the ferocious William de la Marck, The assassination scene takes place during a banquet:
“the wild boar of the Ardennes.” Architecture is a full-­fledged the exaggerated perspective, accentuated by the brilliance of
actor in this and other of the artist’s works from the 1820s in the white tablecloth, structures the composition; like the
which dramas play out before spectators. Marino Faliero’s large marble staircase in Marino Faliero, the banquet table separates
staircase shows the influence of theater on Delacroix, and The the protagonists. The physiognomy and attitude of the execu-
Murder of the Bishop of Liège and Interior of a Dominican Convent tioner are similar to those in A Blacksmith (cat. 80), etched at
in Madrid (L’Amende Honorable) (cat. 71) attest to the impres- nearly the same time. Armed with a crude knife, he is shown
sions he formed during visits to historical monuments, includ- rolling up his sleeves to do his dirty work. The impression
ing the Gothic halls of the Palais de Justice in Rouen and of of a stifling atmosphere, rendered by the warm colors, chiar-
Westminster Abbey in London. oscuro, gleaming glasses, light of the torches, vast crowd,

62 DELACROIX
 What brigands they make! What jovial and bloodthirsty
brutality! How they swarm and yelp, how they blaze
and reek!”121
When the hero does not melt into the anonymity of a
collective, when he is not pushed to the margins of the com-
position, he is very often split in two to convey the comple-
mentary and dialectical facets of a divided humanity: animal
instincts and divine aspirations, good and evil, emotion and
reason. Introduced in 1822 with The Barque of Dante, the
theme of the double was developed in Delacroix’s prints,
particularly the series of lithographs inspired by Faust, which
the publisher Motte commissioned to accompany Albert
Stapfer’s 1823 French translation of Goethe’s tragedy (see
cats. 36–56). The print series was published in 1828, but
Delacroix seems to have taken an interest in the subject con-
siderably earlier. In 1824, he wrote in his Journal of his interest
in engravings after Faust that he had seen. They were probably
either the prints done by the German painter Peter Cornelius
beginning in 1811 and published in 1816, or those by Moritz
Retzsch, published the same year. His interest was aroused
again by the spectacular theatrical performance of George
Soane and Daniel Terry’s Devil and Dr. Faustus, loosely based
on Goethe’s play, that he attended in London in 1825. The
painter presented an original interpretation that would
captivate Goethe himself. Taking advantage of the narrative
possibilities created by the series format, he focused primarily
on the reciprocal evolution of the hero and his evil genius—
Marguerite having been destroyed by their relationship from
the start. In the earliest prints, such as Faust Trying to Seduce
Marguerite (see cat. 47), Delacroix represented the two men
as monstrously alike. Later on, he tended to give a more
human physiognomy to Faust and animalistic features to
Mephistopheles (see cat. 53), emphasizing the diabolical and
CAT. 80 A Blacksmith, 1833
almost schizophrenic character of the partnership prior to
its dissolution.
guests’ brutal, frenetic body language, and accumulation of Shortly before, with Macbeth Consulting the Witches (see
ruddy faces resembling grimacing masks would spark memo- cat. 19), Delacroix had proposed a more ambiguous represen-
ries of the massacres perpetrated during the Revolution and, tation of a hero split in two, threatened by the danger of
for those viewing the painting a few years later, the sack of the schizophrenia. This plate epitomizes Romantic lithography.
archbishop’s palace in Paris, which took place in February Delacroix reversed the normal practice for the medium:
1831. What is depicted is less an individual story than a violent instead of drawing with a lithographic pencil, he covered the
spectacle in which, as Alain Corbin argues, a mob creates a stone completely with violent black hatching; then, with a
bloody representation of itself.120 Gautier described the paint- stylus, he drew the shapes and physiognomies, making them
ing well: “This little canvas screams, vociferates, blasphemes . . . emerge literally from the darkness. With the same tool, he
you hear the obscene songs of that drunken rabble of soldiers. released and modulated a flood of light. The virtuosity of the

“FAME IS NOT AN EMPTY WORD”: 1822–32 63

 37 38

40

CAT. 37 Mephistopheles Flying over the City

(Study for “Faust,” plate 1), ca. 1825–27
CAT. 38 Faust, plate 1: Mephistopheles Aloft, 1826/27

CAT. 39 Faust, plate 2: Faust in His Study, 1826/27

CAT. 40 Faust, plate 3: Faust and Wagner, 1826/27

39

64 DELACROIX
41 42

CAT. 41Faust, plate 4: Faust, Wagner, and the Poodle, 1826/27

CAT. 42 Faust, plate 5: Mephistopheles Appearing to Faust, 1826/27

CAT. 43 Faust, plate 6: Mephistopheles Receiving the Student, 1826/27

43

65
 44 45

46 47

CAT. 44 Faust and Mephistopheles in the Tavern (Study for “Faust,” plate 7), 1825/26
CAT. 45 Faust, plate 7: Mephistopheles in Auerbach’s Tavern, 1826

CAT. 46 Faust, Marguerite, and Mephistopheles in the Street (Study for “Faust,” plate 8), ca. 1825–27

CAT. 47 Faust, plate 8: Faust Trying to Seduce Marguerite, 1826/27. For plate 9, see cat. 48

66 DELACROIX
 49 50

51 52

CAT. 49Faust, plate 10: Marguerite at the Spinning Wheel, 1826/27

CAT. 50 Faust, plate 11: Duel between Faust and Valentin, 1826/27

CAT. 51 Faust, plate 12: Mephistopheles and Faust Fleeing after the Duel, 1826/27
CAT. 52 Faust, plate 13: Marguerite in Church, 1826/27

67
 53 54

55 56

CAT. 53 Faust, plate 14: Faust and Mephistopheles in the Harz Mountains, 1826/27
CAT. 54 Faust, plate 15: Marguerite’s Ghost Appearing to Faust, 1826/27

CAT. 55 Faust, plate 16: Faust and Mephistopheles Galloping on Walpurgis Night, 1826

CAT. 56 Faust, plate 17: Faust with Marguerite in Prison, 1826/27

68 DELACROIX
 CAT. 19 Macbeth Consulting the Witches, 1825

line obtained by scraping—sinewy for the witches, more written text of Macbeth at the time, did not choose the first
undulating for the diabolical vapors, very strong and insistent encounter between the witches and the hero on the brink of
for the fire, subtle for the drops overflowing the kettle—­ becoming an assassin. He opted for the much more ambigu-
produced an impression of instability that raises doubts about ous first scene of act 4. Macbeth is portrayed at the moment
the reality of the scene. Does Macbeth really see the witches, of his fall, when murder becomes an end in itself and no
or are they the figments of his guilty conscience, now fully in longer necessarily serves his political plans. The witches then
the grip of evil? The dazed expression in his eyes might sug- conjure up scenes of prophecy, as frightening as they are
gest they are mere imaginings. Delacroix, who knew only the incomprehensible.

“FAME IS NOT AN EMPTY WORD”: 1822–32 69

 CAT. 8 Tasso in the Hospital of St. Anna, Ferrara, 1824

The expression of the madness that threatens heroes also menacing shadow is cast. He, like the author of Gerusalemme
appears in the first version of Tasso in the Hospital of St. Anna, Liberata, appears in a halo of light; he is the inverted image of
Ferrara (cat. 8). The poet, depicted in the pose of a melan- the poet assailed by his inner demons. Rather than focusing
cholic, is confined in the madhouse of St. Anna in Ferrara, on the picturesque aspect of a subject so beloved of the
where he is taunted by other inmates. In this original render- Romantics, Delacroix expressed its violence: Tasso’s illumi-
ing of the confrontation between the poet and a madman, nated face stands out against a dark scene showing a guard
Delacroix gave the hero and his tormentor similar facial fea- violently whipping a wretched creature whose head barely
tures. The madman stands before a wall onto which his emerges from the obscurity of the background, a possible

70 DELACROIX
allusion to the torments of Tasso’s soul at the time. Whereas the city of Missolonghi against Ottoman troops that were
Tasso’s melancholy conveys the image of the accursed poet, partly composed of Egyptian divisions. The triumphant, dark-­
alone and misunderstood, Sardanapalus’s reveals the sadistic skinned soldier who appears in the middle ground is probably
egotism of the despot. In the 1820s, it is clear that Delacroix an Egyptian. The Greek resisters, worn down by starvation
took care to deliberately undermine the triumphant heroism and disease, were ultimately forced to yield, but they blew
traditionally associated with history painting. themselves up rather than surrender. The survivors were
In its immoderation and profusion, The Death of massacred. For philhellenes, and for Delacroix in particular,
Sardanapalus was an experiment pushed to the extreme. the reference to Missolonghi held added significance. Byron
The artist abandoned himself fully to his own virtuosity and had succumbed to a fever in that city in 1824, on his way to
yielded willingly to the seductiveness of his materials. His bring funds and assistance to the insurgents. The younger
brush is jubilant; the color explodes. He pursued the most generation of France, eager for glory and battle, had been
diverse, even contradictory of paths while continuing to apply roused to the Greeks’ cause through Byron’s writings. The
what he had learned from his previous works. His unbridled canvas of 1826 can therefore be read as a memorial to the
imagination was fueled by the observation of live models recently deceased poet, who so often inspired Delacroix,
transformed into beautifully painted pictorial elements that especially in the artist’s many versions of the Combat of the
accumulate even at the risk of jeopardizing the composition’s Giaour and the Pasha (see fig. 16; cats. 27, 87).
balance. Delacroix was spurred on by the Oriental subject, But the allegory Greece on the Ruins of Missolonghi tran-
but the work’s monumental failure, the violent reactions of scends the specificity of current events and offers a reflection
visitors to the Salon, seems to have convinced him of the on the meaning of history. Horror and signs of violence
hazards of this type of painting, in which the material threat- appear in the middle ground, where severed heads are placed
ened to smother the idea. In a sense, Sardanapalus was by its on a wall, and in the foreground, where a hand emerges
very nature a dead end, and he now had to find a way out—to from the blood-­streaked rubble. These virtuoso details,
employ greater rationality. At the following Salon, Delacroix’s chilling in their realism, are vivid reminders of the reality of
awareness of the situation and acumen about his art led him the massacre, as are the details in Massacres at Chios (see
to reverse course. In July 28, 1830: Liberty Leading the People fig. 5). Conversely, the Egyptian victor’s mien does not
(fig. 26), he presented a painting in which everything is ­horrify; it is as if Delacroix withholds judgment. Early com-
perfectly in its place, composed and balanced. mentators’ remarks about the agitated state of the allegorical
figure of Greece are unfounded; her gesture is not one of
denunciation, imprecation, and terror. She seems to accept as
Toward Real Allegory: Greece on the ineluctable the sacrifice imposed on her as she exhibits her
Ruins of Missolonghi wounds to the viewer. The painting marks the beginning of
the artist’s reflections on the greatness and decline of civiliza-
Delacroix had begun to explore that “more reasonable” path tions, a subject that would haunt his imagination throughout
in Greece on the Ruins of Missolonghi (cat. 26) a year prior to the his life.
scandal at the Salon of 1827–28. It is as if, in the 1820s, the In 1826, with his bold choice of allegory, Delacroix again
young artist was moving in various directions simultaneously; revitalized a genre, anticipating by nearly thirty years the “real
he would abandon works and then return to them, correcting allegory” of Gustave Courbet (see fig. 119). In fact, the paint-
the flaws he had identified or trying his hand at new genres. ing manages to escape the didacticism intrinsic to allegory
In 1826, when a philhellenic committee organized an exhibi- and its abstract vocabulary. An isolated woman, like the model
tion at the Galerie Lebrun as a benefit for the Greeks, the for Orphan Girl in the Cemetery in 1824 (see fig. 9), is sufficient
artist, who two years earlier had painted Massacres at Chios, to represent all the misfortunes of Greece. But the figure of
made the bold choice of presenting an allegory, a genre con- Greece is so laden with artistic references that viewers cannot
sidered outmoded, even anachronistic at the time. Greece on fail to decipher its symbolic meaning. The attitude of the
the Ruins of Missolonghi was an evocation of the nearly year-­ woman alludes to traditional Pietàs, and particularly to an
long resistance proudly mounted in 1825 by the residents of engraving by Marcantonio Raimondi after Raphael, The Virgin

“FAME IS NOT AN EMPTY WORD”: 1822–32 71

FIG. 26 July 28, 1830: Liberty Leading the People, 1830. Oil on canvas, 8 ft. 63/8 in. x 10 ft. 715/16 in. (2.6 x 3.2 m). Musée du Louvre, Paris (RF 129)

Weeping over the Body of the Dead Christ.122 In an early idea for A Barricade
the composition sketched on several sheets of a notebook in
the Louvre, Delacroix considered representing the desperate Delacroix used the idea of allegory again in Liberty, one of
figure standing over the corpses of her children. He was his most famous paintings (fig. 26). Exhibited at the Salon
inspired by the figure of the kneeling woman in the center of of 1831, the work was painted to celebrate the Revolution of
David’s The Intervention of the Sabine Women. Delacroix’s model 1830, which brought down the Bourbon king Charles X and
is said to have been a certain Laure, who posed for Woman put Louis-Philippe d’Orléans (r. 1830–48) on the throne.
with a Parrot (see cat. 33), but the artist ended up painting a On a barricade in the heart of Paris, a bare-­breasted woman
more geometric face, which would be further idealized when advances, accompanied by the people she leads. She bran-
he rendered it in profile in Liberty Leading the People. dishes the blue, white, and red flag inherited from the

CAT. 26 Greece on the Ruins of Missolonghi, 1826

“FAME IS NOT AN EMPTY WORD”: 1822–32 73

Revolution of 1789 and adopted by the new king. In contrast or legend; the commander of the impending conflagration is a
to the static figure of a defeated and aggrieved Greece, the strange figment, a cross between a Byronian theatrical character
ill-­fated heir of a brilliant ancient civilization, the energetic and an obscure figure from millennia past. As in Massacres at
Liberty is on the march; she is the surging hope of a brighter Chios, in which Delacroix transmuted contemporary newspa-
future. If in the 1820s the violence of civil war and urban per reports into bodies and spaces, the artist, stimulated by his
slaughters could have legitimately appeared to Delacroix as readings, relied on the power of his imagination to construct
events that had occurred in other times and places, that was the enormous scene. He gradually gave it weight and sub-
no longer the case after the revolution of July 1830. As he stance, as he added the realistic effects provided by his many
wrote to his nephew, Charles de Verninac: “Three days in the models and the accessories he gathered in the studio.
midst of shellfire and gunshots, people fighting everywhere. The construction of Liberty Leading the People, painted in
Someone like me, simply out for a walk, had as great a the wake of the revolution of 1830, took the opposite course.
chance of being hit by a bullet as the heroes of the moment The artist assembled his image from things he had seen, heard,
who marched on the enemy with pieces of iron inserted into and felt, things with a strong but only temporary presence:
broomsticks.”123 Delacroix witnessed insurrection and the piles of paving stones, beams, and barrels that had been
phenomenon of the barricades, which had reappeared in Paris cleared away by the early days of August; corpses rapidly
in 1827. These modern forms of massacre invaded his own carried off, washed, and buried; the noise of alarm bells and
urban and social environment—the streets of Paris—and gunfire, which quickly fell silent. He then proceeded to
involved his compatriots, members of his own generation. For derealize and abstract these elements through smoke effects
the first time, Delacroix was confronted with the difficulty of similar to those that precede the descent of a deus ex machina
rendering a historical event to which he was a direct witness onstage. In the painting, the theatrical fog served to attenuate
and in which he played a part. How to synthesize multiple and the presence of the urban environment and cast into relief the
successive incidents in a single image? How to convey the human figures in the foreground. The very title, July 28, 1830:
complexity and ambiguity of the event, the tangle of facts and Liberty Leading the People, affirms the deliberate ambiguity of
interpretations, reality and imagination? the work, the universal message of which is conveyed through
Liberty Leading the People, which Delacroix nicknamed the commemoration of a specific historical event. Liberty,
“Barricade,” seems to concentrate the imaginary characteristics her feet and breasts bare, carries the Revolutionary tricolor—
of the barricade identified by Alain Corbin, beginning with its the blue, white, and red—rehabilitated by the new regime
ephemerality and deadliness: “The barricade, haunted by and serving as the composition’s chromatic fulcrum. Like the
promises of the future, is a temporary structure; it is quickly barricade, with its contradictory symbolic associations—it is
transformed into a tomb, a space outside time, where a funeral both a space of liberation and a tomb—Liberty is ambiguous:
ceremony seems to play out.”124 Delacroix’s painting memori- half-­goddess and half-­woman of the people. “A fishwife,” some
alizes a fragile construction, spontaneous and transitory; it critics would howl, perhaps remembering the actions of
conveys what the barricades were like in July 1830 and simul- women during the earlier Revolution and disturbed by their
taneously evokes the tomb, the sacrificial altar, that these sites active roles on the most recent barricades.125
became for the victims of the street battles, whatever their While Delacroix assigned a traditional female role—that
political camp. There is a disturbing resonance between the of mater dolorosa—to the allegorical figure in Greece on the
primitive, popular architecture of the barricade and the deadly Ruins of Missolonghi (cat. 26), five years later he had other
mound of humanity that both shapes and fuels the pyre in plans for Liberty. That figure, an homage to Gros’s Bonaparte
Sardanapalus. Employing the same pyramidal composition, on the Bridge at Arcole (1796; Musée National du Château,
Delacroix expressed in both paintings the idea of bodily sacri- Versailles), is leading the people. To be sure, all of her follow-
fice for the sake of freedom. But the works illustrate opposite ers are male and correspond to types, even stereotypes: a Paris
political extremes: on one hand, the civil liberty of a people urchin carrying a shoulder bag probably taken off a corpse;
united against the arbitrariness of government; on the other, a a student from the Ecole Polytechnique, with his beret; an
monstrous tyrant’s ultimate caprice, the freedom to destroy
himself. The pyre of Sardanapalus is merely the stuff of dreams FIG. 26 July 28, 1830: Liberty Leading the People, 1830, detail

74 DELACROIX
 FIG. 27The Sultan of Morocco, sketch, ca. 1832–33. Oil on canvas, 123/16 x 153/4 in. (31 x 40 cm). Musée des Beaux-­
Arts, Dijon (inv. DG 86) (J 369)

industrial worker; a craftsman wearing a top hat; a peasant crushed. The motionless frontality of Massacres at Chios and
dressed in overalls and red flannel belt.126 Unlike the unfortu- Greece on the Ruins of Missolonghi was intended to shock visitors
nate Greeks in Massacres at Chios, the common people of Paris to the Salon and appeal to their responsibility as citizens and
are not depicted in a state of paralysis, passively awaiting their human beings. The brutal intrusion of Liberty into the viewer’s
cruel fate: they are the authors of their own history. The force space, followed by her cohort of armed men and children,
of Delacroix’s composition stems from the artist’s capacity to leaves no room for hesitation: the time for reflection has given
depict the revolution as a perpetually ongoing process. way to the moment for action.
In his early paintings, Delacroix made significant use of Although the state purchased the painting, the subver-
both the fictive space of the image and the real space of the sive power of the image was so great that, by 1832, it was
gallery in which the painting would be seen.127 In Liberty judged dangerous to the July Monarchy (the government of
Leading the People, he used that technique with formidable Louis-Philippe). The canvas was therefore removed from the
originality and effectiveness. Although the composition is walls of the Musée du Luxembourg. It then suffered the same
strictly and classically pyramidal, the flag, because it is cropped fate as masterpieces by David, Gros, and Girodet upon the
at the top, introduces an unexpected dynamic. Even more fall of the Empire: at the request of Hippolyte Royer-­Collard,
striking is the forward movement of the figures—most nota- director of fine arts, the painting was placed in storage. In
bly, Liberty—who stride toward the spectator with extraordi- 1839 the regime, which was trying to suppress memories of
nary violence; the viewer is, in some sense, set upon. The how it had come into power, even agreed to return it to the
people, on the march toward their liberation, advance on artist. Owing to the revolution of 1848, the work resurfaced at
their audience, whose only options are to join in or be the Musée du Luxembourg; yet it was barely back on view

76 DELACROIX
FIG. 28Moroccan Interior: The Green Door, 1832. FIG. 29 Interior with Moorish Archways, 1832. Watercolor over graphite on paper, 97/16 x
Watercolor over graphite on paper, 95/8 x 715/16 in. 137/16 in. (23.9 x 34.2 cm). Musée du Louvre, Paris (RF 9266)
(24.4 x 20.2 cm). Musée du Louvre, Paris (RF 4528)

when it disappeared again into the storerooms, for fear that it support, like that of Adolphe Thiers, one of the first to sing
could be interpreted as an incitement to riot. Not until the his praises in 1822 and now an influential administrator.
Exposition Universelle of 1855, and with special dispensation At the end of 1831 comte Charles de Mornay made
from Emperor Napoleon III, was the painting once again Delacroix a proposal that would come as a godsend. Mornay
displayed to the public. asked Delacroix to accompany him on a diplomatic mission to
After the Salon of 1831, Delacroix faced the question of Morocco, where they were to meet with Sultan Moulay Abd-­
how to continue, how to find new inspiration. In under ten er-­Rahman in an effort to establish good relations with his
years he had explored and revitalized nearly every genre: country, an encounter that the artist would depict multiple
history painting, modern subjects, animal painting, portrai- times (see, for example, figs. 27, 37, and cat. 138). The journey,
ture, still life, literary subjects, the nude. He had also experi- which unfolded between January and July 1832, took the artist
mented in many ways, setting off in new directions, then to Meknes, with stops in Spain and, on the return trip, Algeria,
leaving them only to return to them later. Liberty Leading the where he visited Oran and, from June 25 to 28, Algiers. The trip
People was both his most balanced and most subversive compo- offered him the opportunity to step back and find new sources
sition, and the first one in which he had managed to evade the of inspiration through contact with the living antiquity he went
“facility of the brush.” His thirst for fame had been more than in search of: “I use part of my time for work, another consider-
satisfied at the Salon. Despite the repeated scandals and the able part to let myself live. But it never occurs to me to think
bitter failure of The Death of Sardanapalus, many of his works about my reputation or the Salon I had to miss, as they said.”128
had been acquired by the state and hung in the Musée du
Luxembourg in anticipation of their eventual transfer to the
Louvre. In the eyes of the public, who were influenced by “Living Antiquity”
unprecedented developments in the press, he appeared—
very much in spite of himself—to be the leader of the “young The preeminence of the subject and the tension between the
innovators,” the “apostles of the ugly” whom the Neoclassical subject and execution of a work gave rise to another question,
critics violently denounced. His networks had become more namely, a painting’s purpose. Should a painting contain a
extensive, and he was beginning to benefit from very promising lesson, as Neoclassical doctrine proclaimed, or should it be

“FAME IS NOT AN EMPTY WORD”: 1822–32 77

 CAT. 83 Women of Algiers in Their Apartment, 1834

a feast for the eye above all else? Delacroix could not decide, prosaic subjects of Realism and what it put on display. In the
though he concluded his Journal with this remark: “This does same way, the subtle correction Delacroix made in his Journal
not mean that there need be no sense in it [painting].” He demonstrated his lack of sympathy for the doctrine of art for
hastened to add, however, “It is like beautiful verses.”129 Such art’s sake. Nevertheless, his remark, in its very simplicity,
an idea, formulated in 1863, may of course have had Realism undermined the theoretical edifice on which the classical
as its target, at least in part. The artist, though he admired the system of painting had been built. That assault was at least as
direction of Courbet’s painting, rejected the supposedly important as the blows he struck against Realism. In fact, his

78 DELACROIX
reassessment of delectare versus docere, giving pleasure versus
teaching a lesson, in other words (at least in part), form
versus content, signifier versus signified, finally amounted to
a disruption of the traditional ideology of ut pictura poesis.
Delacroix, who belonged to a generation inculcated with that
ideology, could not go quite so far and, in his constant vacilla-
tions, his corrections of his ideas by means of nuance, he
attempted to stay on track. The classical system, based on the
association of the painter and the poet, obscured the fact that
the poet, at least before the advent of modern poetry, had to
make himself understood before seeking to please, whereas
the painter sometimes followed the reverse course.
Women of Algiers in Their Apartment (cat. 83), a painting
inspired by Delacroix’s trip to the Maghreb in 1832 and
exhibited at the Salon of 1834, played a decisive role in that
problem. Its imposing format is suggestive of a history painting
enlivened by an action, but its title (and hence its subject) is
that of a genre scene. Nevertheless, this particular Oriental
scene shuns all picturesqueness. In the entry for the Salon
program, Delacroix took care to substitute the Western word
“apartment” for “harem,” as if he were rejecting the exoticism
implied by his subject, as if he were seeking to minimize the
cultural distance, if not to create a form of empathy despite
that distance. That is one indication of the gap between the
seriousness of the representation of Women of Algiers and the
poetry of the bazaar that lay behind many Orientalist canvases
of the time. The work’s status is therefore indeterminate.
Although we are now accustomed to such fluidity, it disturbed
contemporaries, as Amédée Cantaloube noted: “Although his
Algerian Women seems at first sight to be only a genre study,
generalizing strains can be found in it.”130 The opposition CAT. 82 Figure Study for “Women of Algiers,” 1833/34
between “genre study” and “generalizing strains” conveys the
tension between genre scenes and history painting. Delacroix
was aware of it; in fact, his experience of the Orient seems to conveys his astonishment and a kind of admiration. Delacroix
have been dominated by that tension. continued: “If the school of painting persists in proposing
In a letter of 1832 to his friend Pierret, he wrote: “Imagine, to the nurslings of the Muses the family of Priam and Atreus
my friend, what it is like to see figures like c­ onsuls—Catos, as their subjects, I am convinced—and you will be of the same
Brutuses—lying in the sun, walking in the streets, mending opinion—that it would be infinitely better for them to be sent
old shoes.” The painter thus arrived in the Maghreb with his as ship’s mates on the first vessel to the Barbary Coast than to
eyes filled with Western culture, believing he had found in wear down the classical territory of Rome any longer.”
Algeria and Morocco the “living antiquity” he had come In the canvases inspired by the Orient, Delacroix desired
looking for. Everywhere he saw Catos, Brutuses, Ciceros.131 to escape the picturesque, the superficiality of alluring descrip-
But he found them idling in the sun or cobbling shoes, at a tiveness, in order to restore the ideal that makes for true paint-
great remove from the heroization that time had bestowed on ing. When he evoked Catos lying in the sun, the expression
the Greeks and Romans. “Imagine, my friend, what it is . . .” must be taken seriously. The greatness of a work is not measured

“FAME IS NOT AN EMPTY WORD”: 1822–32 79

 CAT. 72 Jewish Woman of Tangier, 1832

solely by the nobility of its subject but by the nobility with the fine arts and inventor of a method of drawing: “Truth in
which it is rendered. Delacroix added geographical distance the arts is relative to the person who is writing, composing,
to chronological distance, which is the essence of the histori- etc.”132 Delacroix managed to avoid the repetitive and superfi-
cal subject. For him, “the thing seen” did not culminate in a cial picturesqueness of many painters who traveled to North
form of realistic representation, as it did for many of his fellow Africa, the Middle East, and the Ottoman Empire. The
artists, but in a poetic recomposition founded on the idealiz- Moroccan expedition was a liberation. Wherever he stopped,
ing work of memory. Therein lay its novelty. The subject was Delacroix, always with notebook in hand, made a sketch:
less in the rendering than in its perception by the artist. That costume details, heads, expressions, settings, landscapes,
idea runs through Delacroix’s entire career, from the remark horses, objects, trees, plants, relics of antiquity, languid
in his Journal in 1824, in which he declared that nothing was women (cats. 72–76, 78, 79, 81; fig. 30). He showed a particu-
true for him but the illusions he created, to a letter of June 8, lar fondness for doors and thresholds (see figs. 28, 29), which
1855, to his friend Marie-­Elisabeth Cavé, wife of a director of seem to symbolize, as in Street in Meknes (see cat. 77), more

80 DELACROIX
CAT. 76 Saada, the Wife of Abraham Ben-Chimol, and Préciada, One of Their Daughters, 1832

81
 CAT. 75 A Man of Tangier, 1832

82 DELACROIX
 CAT. 74 Standing Moroccan, 1832 CAT. 73 Portrait of Schmareck, Tanner at Tangier, 1832

FIG. 30 Notes and Sketches Made at Tangier, “North African Sketchbook,”

folios 12 verso and 13 recto, January–April 1832. Pen and brown ink
with watercolor, overall 61/2 x 77/8 in. (16.5 x 20 cm). Musée du Louvre,
Paris (RF 39050)

“FAME IS NOT AN EMPTY WORD”: 1822–32 83

 CAT. 78 Moroccan Military Exercises, 1832

CAT. 79 Arab Cavalry Practicing a Charge (Fantaisie Arabe), 1833

CAT. 81 Collision of Arab Horsemen, 1833/34

“FAME IS NOT AN EMPTY WORD”: 1822–32 85

 CAT. 77 Street in Meknes, 1832

than a form of mystery; rather, they suggest the discovery of Horse in a Landscape (cat. 97) and Arab Players (cat. 107). Visits
and encounter with the Other. to museums and copying the masters, the foundations of the
Delacroix thus accomplished an enormous amount of history painter’s art, were no longer the only sources of techni-
work from life and outdoors, often in watercolor, a medium cal inspiration: sometimes he had only to go out into the street.
with unpredictable effects that certainly sharpened his percep- In 1821–22 Delacroix had discovered the secret of depicting
tion. This intense activity played a fundamental role in his glistening drops of water by studying those that Rubens had
future reflections on the effects of observing the world—trees, painted on the bodies of the Nereids in The Landing of Maria de
flowers, tiger’s stripes, rocks, waves, sand, and so on—and on Medici at Marseilles (see fig. 4);133 in the 1830s, if Charles Blanc
his inspiration and growing attention to the landscape, as is to be believed, it was upon observing a yellow taxi that the
indicated somewhat later by such works as Startled Arabian artist became aware of the role complementary colors play in

86 DELACROIX
shadows.134 In the interval, he had the experience of travel. He a sensation partly liberated from the grip of the thing seen.
thus freed himself from the overly l­iterary—and therefore Imagination thus played a major role in his art; his paintings
exceedingly narrative—aspects of his previous sources of would achieve the ideal that constitutes the greatness of his-
inspiration in order to devote more space to sensation, high- tory painting. Unfortunately, because Delacroix did not keep
lighting the tension between the subject and the motif. a journal while working on his large Oriental scenes, we
Above all, extensive note-­taking allowed Delacroix to cannot follow precisely the idealizing process of memory
liberate himself not only from studio formulas but also from that was involved in their making. A slightly later text sheds
the studio itself and, consequently, from an imitative concep- light on the subject, however. On October 8, 1847, Delacroix
tion of the model. During his journey, he made no oil paint- compared a work by Claudius Jacquand to a painting by
ings, but he assembled a collection of motifs, a dictionary Narcisse-Virgile Diaz de la Peña. Jacquand’s painting, despite
of forms and subjects, that he would use for the rest of his its realistic rendering, seemed false to him; the meticulous
career. His manner of filling certain travel notebooks with imitation of the most insignificant objects led only to dullness
long lists of succinctly written images reveals his urgent need and clumsiness. In Diaz’s work, by contrast, “everything came
to record sensations in order to invoke them subsequently out of the painter’s imagination, but the memories are faithful
in all their richness: to life.” Regarding Jacquand, Delacroix concluded: “It is as if
this painting were done by a man incapable of even the slight-
The nights on the terraces est recollection of objects, for whom the detail he has before
The cranes on the houses of Alcassar his eyes is the only striking one.”136 The passage of time, in
The nervousness that makes us go through the city bringing loss, opens up empty spaces into which many possi-
without stopping bilities, multiple interpretations, insinuate themselves.
The fury of the consul’s horse Women of Algiers (see cat. 83), Convulsionists of Tangier
The man it had half eaten, etc.135 (see fig. 34), Moroccan Chieftain Receiving Tribute (cat. 92), and
Jewish Wedding in Morocco (see fig. 31), though inspired by
Extensive written descriptions would have run the risk of events that Delacroix had witnessed, avoid the descriptive
fixing the scene in place and reducing its capacity to inspire exoticism that marked the heyday of Orientalism; instead, they
in the future. offer reminiscences. Memory allowed him to reproduce
He would soon write lists of biblical and historical subjects the model while idealizing it in order to produce art from
in his Journal. Henceforth, not only books and engravings but nature rather than, like Jacquand, a prosaic copy. The work’s
also his own notebooks, which contained his memories— originality would be determined by the artist’s capacity to
whether recorded as drawings, watercolors, or in written form— be himself. The distance Delacroix introduced into Jewish
would trigger his imagination and awaken inspiration. This Wedding in Morocco, by viewing the principal figures from afar
process is illustrated in two late works, Guard-­Room at Meknes and by representing in the foreground men viewed from the
(see fig. 94) and Arab Horses Fighting in a Stable (see cat. 144). back and partly immersed in shadow, leads viewers—as if they
were Western visitors—to the threshold of a house not com-
pletely open to them. Despite the abundance of costumes,
“Drowsy Reverie” jewelry, musical instruments, and exotic details, the scene
retains its mystery and avoids cumbersome pseudo-­realistic
These paintings raise anew the question of the model and its description. Several critics used the term “reverie” to capture
function. When Delacroix turned to his travel notebooks the idealizing role of memory. Amédée Cantaloube, for exam-
after his return to Paris, he no longer had the model before ple, saw in Women of Algiers “an entirely foreign culture of
his eyes; he had only the memory of it. Just as while he was charming beings, listless in drowsy reverie.”137 He had previ-
reading, Delacroix inserted himself into the empty spaces, the ously noted that “Delacroix, when dealing with the Orient,
blanks in the text, in order to reinvent the narrative through did not specialize in searching for local color or reproducing
painting, so, too, he would summon from the depths of his this or that picturesque corner in the interest of slavish exacti-
memory, using the precious material compiled during his trip, tude.”138 The real is not the true.

“FAME IS NOT AN EMPTY WORD”: 1822–32 87

 CAT. 97 Startled Arabian Horse in a Landscape, ca. 1835–40

CAT. 107 Arab Players, 1848

88 DELACROIX
CAT. 92 Moroccan Chieftain Receiving Tribute, 1837

“FAME IS NOT AN EMPTY WORD”: 1822–32 89

 FIG. 31 Jewish Wedding in Morocco, 1841. Oil on canvas, 415/16 x 555/16 in. (105 x 140.5 cm). Musée du Louvre, Paris (3825) (J 366)

The second version of Women of Algiers (fig. 32) provides

the most striking example of this phenomenon. Unlike the
painting of 1834, the version of 1849 appears to have been
conceived primarily as a reminiscence. In light of its
Rembrandtesque chiaroscuro, the painting could be called
“Souvenir of Morocco” (with a nod to Camille Corot, who
employed this formulation in several of his titles). The
women, observed from a greater distance than in the 1834
version, look like apparitions. They are presented theatrically
through the gesture of the black servant, who lifts the curtain
concealing them. This figure was the artist’s invention, even
in the first version of the painting, for which Delacroix posed
a Caucasian model in his studio (see cat. 82). Delacroix
painted a mystery to be unveiled, as it were. The instrument
of that unveiling is the slave, placed in the intermediate
space between the spectator and the Algerian women, who
strike poses as in a tableau vivant. Delacroix thus introduced FIG. 32 Women of Algiers in Their Apartment, 1849. Oil on canvas, 337/16 x
a narrative element that paradoxically evokes Charles 441/16 in. (85 x 112 cm). Musée Fabre, Montpellier (inv. 868.1.38) (J 382)

90 DELACROIX
Cournault’s description of a visit to a harem in 1832: “After Granted, the women painted by Delacroix are inactive. “It’s
crossing a dark hallway, when you enter into the part of the as if you were seeing flowers vegetate,” exclaimed Paul de
house reserved for them, the eye is truly dazzled by the bright Saint-­Victor, adding: “No shadow of a thought ever crossed
light, by the fresh faces of women and children, who appear their faded cheeks; no passion ever hastened the rise and fall
all of a sudden in the midst of that heap of silk and gold.”139 In of their heavy bosoms.”144
this later version of the work, though the women are no more But might not these women be interesting in themselves?
active than in the canvas of 1834, the dramatic effect, obtained The title of the painting, in its combination of East and West,
by the contrasts of light, introduces a form of narration that introduced an ambiguity. The fusion between the promise of
seizes the beholder and distills the sense of time and action. a dreamlike, feminine, and Algerian distance and the prosaic
The painting functions as a kind of revelation, because its true notion of an “apartment” immerses these seemingly vacant
subject resides in the experience of a visitor entering a harem. women in a profuse luxury of place and finery. Although they
might seem foreign to us, they are less foreign than they appear
at first glance. The pose of the reclining figure on the left
“It Is Paint and Nothing More” brings to mind the ancient Sleeping Ariadne (Vatican Museums);
the Algerian woman embodies the living antiquity that dazzled
The first painting on this subject, which the artist exhibited the artist. These women resemble us; they are modern. The
at the Salon of 1834, was done in a completely different presence of a timepiece, so rarely remarked upon yet located
spirit. Women of Algiers can be seen as a manifesto. Executed almost in the middle of the painting, hanging from the bodice
shortly after Delacroix’s return to France, it tests the limits of of the woman in the center, expresses the idea both symboli-
the relationship between idea and execution, subject and cally and materially. The precious object does not date back
material object. Unlike Jewish Wedding in Morocco (fig. 31), to the dawn of time; it belongs to the nineteenth century. It is
inspired by a ceremony in Tangier that Delacroix attended on therefore the surroundings that introduce an element of
February 21, 1832, and unlike Convulsionists of Tangier (fig. 34) strangeness. The harem has been renamed an apartment, but
or even Portrait of Aspasie (see cat. 10), this work has a prob- there is nothing bourgeois about it: it has a luxury, a decora-
lematic subject.140 What did the artist’s contemporaries see in tive profusion, that combines Arab faience, Oriental carpets,
it? Nothing. Nothing but paint. After a visit to the Louvre and Venetian mirrors, the art of the Maghreb and Western
in 1877, the Symbolist painter Fernand Khnopff exclaimed: imports juxtaposed.
“Of all the Delacroix paintings there, the one I like least is It is as if the spectator (most often male) were struggling
Women of Algiers. The color is beautiful, but there is nothing to accept the face-­to-­face encounter with these listless beings,
but that, and that is not enough: I need an action, a subject, who belie the image he might have had of a harem. Except for
something that moves me.”141 In other words, he needed a their apparent indolence, the women have none of the sexual
narrative subject. In the same years, Charles Blanc, in an allure of the odalisque, a Western male fantasy projected onto
obvious allusion to Delacroix, expressed a similar judgment: an Orient under invasion, and a subject Delacroix painted
“In passionately pursuing the triumph of color, the painter several times. With the trip to the Maghreb, he liberated
risks sacrificing action to spectacle. So what do our colorists himself from the literary clichés he had fallen for so brilliantly
do? They go to the Orient, to Egypt, to Morocco, to Spain.”142 in his early works. The women of Algiers are neither nude
The spectacle to which Blanc referred was clearly that of nor, worse, undressed, to satisfy the lustful, dominating gaze
color. In 1834, such a spectacle was already quite something; of the European male. Like Ingres’s Grande Odalisque (fig. 33),
it was new, as Blanc himself indicated, referring to Women which inspired Delacroix’s Woman with a Parrot (cat. 33),
of Algiers. “This essential piece is of interest only because of they neither offer their favors nor pretend to decline them.
the paint. . . . It is paint and nothing more; fresh, vigorous, Delacroix’s voyeurism, if it is voyeurism, is more apparent
energetically displayed.”143 Delacroix had thus partly realized in the 1849 canvas—through the servant’s unveiling of the
his dream of spreading matter across the canvas as the ideal tableau—than in the scene of 1834. We may therefore wonder
of art, of dispensing with any bothersome mediation of a whether Baudelaire’s famous dictum “This little domestic
subject. At least that is how the painting was perceived. poem . . . gives off a strong whiff of a place of ill repute”

“FAME IS NOT AN EMPTY WORD”: 1822–32 91

 might not apply better to the painting in Montpellier, which
the poet may have seen as it was being completed.145 However,
in his allusion to a place of ill repute, Baudelaire may have
been attempting to introduce the role of sexuality traditionally
associated with the harem, an aspect Delacroix engulfed in a
more general sensuality.
The more disturbing the power of woman, the less she is
seen. There is a certain paradox in considering this type of
blindness in the context of Delacroix’s opening up of the
harem to Western eyes—his conferral of the status of subject
on women who had been denied by male authority and by
FIG. 33 Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres (French, 1780–1867). Grande colonialism, which had violated their private realm. But per-
Odalisque, 1814. Oil on canvas, 3513/16 x 633/4 in. (91 x 162 cm). Musée du haps, as Patrick Vauday has aptly remarked, he did these things
Louvre, Paris (RF 1158) in an ambiguous manner.146 The emptiness of the women’s

CAT. 33 Woman with a Parrot, 1827

92 DELACROIX
 FIG. 34 Convulsionists of Tangier, 1837–38. Oil on canvas, 375/8 x 505/8 in. (95.6 x 128.6 cm). Minneapolis Institute of Art, Bequest of
J. Jerome Hill (73.42.3) (J 360)

gaze reveals their effort to withdraw from the presence of the painting from telling a story. That is the reason, according to
intruder, whether the visitor to the harem—the colonizer— Alexandre-Gabriel Decamps, that the public saw it “only as a
or the male visitor to the Salon. The result is an absent pres- scene without emotion, a painting without an entry.”148 The
ence, as if these women were blending into the decorative allusion to an “entry,” an explanatory text published in the
overexuberance of the canvas, obliging viewers to shift their Salon catalogue, is obviously metaphorical. Nonetheless,
attention to the material substance of the paint itself. the subjects of other Moroccan works by Delacroix—Jewish
That is what the artist wanted. Paul Signac pointed out Wedding in Morocco (fig. 31), Moroccan Chieftain Receiving
this inversion of the relationship between the women repre- Tribute (cat. 92), Convulsionists of Tangier (fig. 34)—were
sented and the frame, describing how their flesh dissolves into precisely explained in such entries, whereas, for the painting
the decorative continuum: “If the setting shines more bril- of 1834, the artist dispensed with all commentary that might
liantly than the jewels, it is because Delacroix made the have helped viewers interpret the image. Furthermore, he
most insignificant surfaces—fabrics, door hangings, carpets, clouded its meaning by using the term “apartment” rather
faience—shimmer by introducing a number of small details than “harem” in the title, thus merging Western and Eastern
and ornaments whose various colors come to quiet or excite realities. In this fashion, he accentuated the “display of paint,”
those parts of the painting, even as he painted almost mono- the essence of his art. When compared with Sardanapalus,
chrome flesh, because in real life, that is what it looks like.”147 however, Women of Algiers shows a shift in Delacroix’s interest
This intentional weakening of the representation prevents the from the material substance of paint to color.

“FAME IS NOT AN EMPTY WORD”: 1822–32 93

“The Shades Interpenetrate Like Silks” is achieved, for instance, when a painter, instead of mixing a
yellow with a blue on his palette, juxtaposes a dab of blue and
In the painting of 1834, Delacroix succeeded in “attracting a dab of yellow directly on the canvas, following a method
interest by means of paint alone, unaided by a subject, which Delacroix would call flochetage. Some critics would denounce
can be interpreted in a thousand different ways and too often the technique for creating “the fuzzy effect of a tapestry
distracts the eye of casual viewers.”149 As in The Death of viewed from the wrong side.”151 In Women of Algiers a good
Sardanapalus, but by opposite means, he managed to assert example can be found in the cushion on which the reclining
the power of the execution in the completed work and to figure at the left is resting. The extraordinary vibration of the
remind viewers that every painting consists of the substance of painting originates in the flochetage. Passages of pure color
paint itself. In The Death of Sardanapalus, that assertion came structure the composition: blue (the servant’s vest and the
about through struggle, in the competition between a violent, stripes of her dress, the silk garment worn by the figure in the
dark, and sensual subject and an overwrought execution that center, the patterned floor tiles); red (the servant’s dress and
flaunted itself in order to rise to the level of the representa- slippers, the doors and hangings, the patterns in the carpets),
tion. In Women of Algiers, by contrast, the weakening of the and yellow (the gold objects and textiles). The black skin
narrative allowed the execution to predominate almost natu- and turning motion of the servant, who is standing, provide a
rally, in a process that culminated in a form of abstraction— counterpoint to the milky flesh tones and immobility of the
the abstraction of color. Delacroix no longer sought to other women. Between these areas, the artist deployed a
emphasize the concrete materiality of his medium. In 1824 dizzying array of virtuoso contrasts between primary, second-
he had described his oil paints in terms of their physical ary, and complementary colors, enriching one another even
characteristics—as “fat” and “thick”; beginning with Women in the smallest details of the scarves and fabrics. The orange of
of Algiers, however, he would reduce the visibility of the the reclining woman’s bolero interacts with the complemen-
brushwork and play instead on the vibrations and the level tary blue of the garment’s lining, which mirrors the servant’s
of intensity of the color. His visit to Morocco, and probably, vest on the other side of the composition. In the foreground,
as Charles Blanc reported, his observation of moiré fabrics, the red babouche edged with gold seems to have been cast
led him to an awareness of the interweaving of colors and casually onto the green fringe of the carpet—that is, on its
the intensity that colors acquire when they interact with one complementary color.
another. The weaving metaphor is particularly apt. As Maxime Referring to Women of Algiers, Paul Cézanne declared
du Camp recounted in his Souvenirs littéraires: “I saw him that “the shades interpenetrate like silks” to such an extent
one evening near a table where there was a basket full of that the materiality of the objects dissolves in the symphony of
wool skeins. He picked up the skeins, grouped them, colors.152 The projected space of the painting, built on the
­rearranged them up, divided them by shade, and thereby intricacy of these colored dabs, resembles the Persian carpets
produced extraordinary color effects. I heard him say: ‘The the painter considered the most beautiful of paintings, like
most beautiful paintings I have seen are certain Persian car- the fabrics he accumulated in his masterpiece. Charles Blanc
pets.’”150 If the anecdote is true, the association of carpets chose the comparison of a shawl: “When we look at a cash-
and paintings once again raises the question of the place of mere shawl from a few steps away, we usually perceive shades
the subject. that are not in the fabric but are themselves composed inside
In Women of Algiers, Delacroix experimented intuitively our eye by the effect of reciprocal reactions of one shade with
and for the first time with the law of simultaneous contrast and another.”153 The result is an infinite variety of color impres-
the optical mixture of complementary colors, which would be sions that language cannot describe: “In The Women of Algiers,
theorized by the chemist Michel Eugène Chevreul five years a blouse dotted with little flowers gives rise to a third, unde-
later, in 1839. This manner of paint application confers on the finable tone that the eye perceives but that language cannot
viewer an active role, since the mixing of colors occurs in the name precisely. A copyist will never obtain it if he tries to
eye and brain rather than on the palette. A more intense green compose it beforehand and deposit it on the canvas with the
tip of his brush.”154 The painter’s art long preceded the art of
CAT. 83 Women of Algiers in Their Apartment, 1834, detail discourse; a painting doesn’t require a catalogue entry.

“FAME IS NOT AN EMPTY WORD”: 1822–32 95

Delacroix was right: when he made a beautiful painting, he certain Gobelins tapestry look. The reproach is well
was not writing down an idea. founded, but there is nothing very alarming about it.
Above all, flochetage entailed a departure from the classi- Gobelins tapestries are very beautiful, and the color is
cal notion of local color, which is predicated on the essence proof of the painter’s delicacy of feeling. In executing
of a thing. The principle assumes that every object possesses a a ceremonial piece, he gave it something of the orna-
natural color that can be isolated by precisely drawing the mental aspect of a wall hanging, which is altogether
model. Black is then added to that color to produce shadows, appropriate, since, after all, the painting will decorate
in a subtle chiaroscuro.155 Delacroix realized that the addition a gallery.157
of black only muddied the color because the shadows them-
selves are colored, resulting, as they do, from reflections. He The painting reduced to an objet d’art: that was the danger
seems to have made the discovery in Morocco, where in one Delacroix would try to ward off.
of his albums he wrote: “Adding black is not the same as After experimenting with the “facility of the brush” in
adding gray tones: it muddies the color, whose true gray tone The Death of Sardanapalus, and then moving away from that
is to be found in the opposite color; therefore, green shadow virtuosity, Delacroix became absorbed in the seductiveness of
in the red.”156 Well-­defined contours do not exist in nature, color only to master it more completely. The artist’s career, as
and the color of an object contaminates that of its neighbors. detailed in his writing, was composed of these experiments,
If local color is rooted in the search for an essence or in the advances, formulations, followed by rectifications, which, like
objective consistency of things, flochetage highlights the vibra- flochetage, constantly made the meaning in his paintings more
tion, even the instability, of the sensation. An object can be precise without ever providing a definitive interpretation.
valorized by its identity, but that identity is not realized in Therein lay Delacroix’s difficulty. After the brilliant feat of
isolation. It comes into being in the porousness between the Women of Algiers, for example, he returned even in the can-
object and its environment, like the red babouche on the vases inspired by his travels to privileging subject over execu-
carpet’s bold green fringe. tion (Convulsionists of Tangier, Jewish Wedding in Morocco) and,
The glorification of luminous color and matter was in the later version of Women of Algiers, to using chiaro­scuro
Delacroix’s great discovery in Women of Algiers. The work has effects as a means of dramatization.
the value of a manifesto insofar as its subject is dissolved in the The simultaneous exhibition of Medea About to Kill Her
effects of color; the tension between the subject and its reali- Children (see cat. 94) and Convulsionists of Tangier (see fig. 34)
zation is here at its height. However, a classically trained artist at the Salon of 1838 seemed an attempt to resolve the dialectic
such as Delacroix knew that this boldness, this exhibition between color and subject. The confrontation between an
of color as matter, ran the risk of lowering the painting to ancient act of rage and a contemporary form of trance was
the ranks of the merely decorative, or to art for art’s sake. probably not coincidental. The images seem to represent two
The many allusions by his contemporaries to tapestries, car- aspects of a single passion expressed in two different “genres”
pets, and cashmere, though often laudatory, are proof of the at two historical moments. That is what Théophile Gautier
risk. In 1841 Gautier noted that Entry of the Crusaders into appeared to sense, without saying so explicitly, in his review
Constantinople (see fig. 36) had been maliciously compared to of the Salon: “It [the Medea] is an ancient subject treated with
a Gobelins tapestry: modern intelligence using forms more human than ideal. That
contrast has a piquancy to it, and the most worn-­out subjects in
Baldwin elicits the strongest criticism, and its success the world would take on a youthful vitality and novelty if under-
is the most contested: it is criticized primarily for a stood in that way. There is a complete revolution in that idea.”158

96 DELACROIX
 Driven to Greatness: 1833–54

Delacroix’s first decade as an artist can be understood reason- had slowed. After the first years of the reign of King Louis-
ably well through his participation in the Salon, the question Philippe, Delacroix lost interest in painting the disasters of
of originality, the stakes of fame, and his desire to master war of his time and the spirit of the revolutions that were
and combine multiple pictorial genres. By contrast, the strate- unsettling Europe’s political order; the Revolutions of 1848–
gies that guided his prolific artistic output after 1832 are more 49 were not reflected in his paintings. While still engaging his
difficult to decipher. In the second decade, Delacroix contin- favorite literary references—Byron, Dante, Shakespeare, Scott,
ued to work simultaneously in all the genres he had mastered Tasso—he focused the greater part of his research on iconog-
in the 1820s: political and biblical history, battle scenes, poetry raphy associated with the sixteenth-­and seventeenth-­century
and theater, animal pictures, Moroccan genre scenes, por- pictorial traditions of France, Italy, and the Low Countries.
traits, and still lifes. He further expanded his repertoire while These included martyrdoms and miracles taken from the
executing the large decorative projects that absorbed him Gospels and lives of the saints, which featured in more than
beginning in 1833. From that point forward he proved himself seventy paintings between 1832 and 1863; attributes of virtue
in the loftiest categories of academic painting—allegory, myth, drawn from biographies of illustrious men of antiquity; fables
and ancient history—as well as their counterpoint, ornamental of Greek mythology (Hesiod, Ovid); and episodes from
painting (floral compositions and large-scale murals). Thus it chivalric romances of the Renaissance (Ariosto, Tasso). All
was that Delacroix distinguished himself as an all-a­round these subjects occupied a much larger place in Delacroix’s
genius in the second half of the 1830s (cat. 93). He was forty oeuvre in the years after 1832 than they had during his first
and his career spanned just fifteen years when Théophile decade as an artist.
Gautier lauded him in his review of the Salon of 1838: The traditional character of his subjects was combined
with a growing eclecticism in his compositions. Delacroix
M. Eugène Delacroix is one of the most adventurous devoted new attention to studying the great geniuses of the
talents of the time; he has a certain restlessness, a past, seemingly at the expense of his rivalries with contempo-
certain feverish genius, that impels him to experiment raries. From then on, he emulated revered painters as diverse
in all sorts of ways; no one has looked more deeply as Rubens, Titian, Veronese, Rembrandt, Poussin, and
into himself. . . . M. Eugène Delacroix, in his desire Raphael, whose work would inform his large decorative proj-
to achieve perfection, has attempted every form, ects and his reflections on art. His increasingly transparent
every style, and every color; there is no genre he has quotation of painterly references began to be remarked upon
touched without leaving some noble and luminous in the mid-­1830s. Gustave Planche, for example, on seeing
trace. Few painters have covered as vast a field as Saint Sebastian Tended by the Holy Women (see cat. 90) at the
M. Delacroix; his oeuvre is already nearly as impres- Salon of 1836, rightly raised questions about his disparate
sive as that of a golden-­age Venetian. He has done choices, though he was sympathetic to them:
frescoes, monumental works, history paintings, genre
paintings, battle scenes, interiors, horses as skillfully This year’s color obviously recalls Titian; last year,
as Gericault, lions and tigers as fine as those of Barye Christ on the Cross brought to mind Rubens; in 1834,
or Desportes.1 Women of Algiers was reminiscent of Veronese. How
does M. Delacroix pursue with such tireless persever-
Gautier’s enthusiastic description masks, however, the ance both imitation and originality? How, even while
change in the relative importance of the different categories retaining the individuality and indelible characteristics
within Delacroix’s iconographic repertoire. In fact, the artist’s of his own thought, does he reproduce by turns the
search for original painting subjects, which up until then he Flemish style and the Venetian style? Why does he
had drawn largely from recent literature or political history, sometimes select Veronese and sometimes Titian from

97
 CAT. 93 Self-­Portrait in a Green Vest, ca. 1837

98 DELACROIX
 among the Venetian masters? Is it not because of his
immoderate desire to do things well? Must we not
believe that M. Delacroix, sincere in each of his works,
in every ambition he realizes, is never satisfied with
himself and is perpetually seeking a new manner, as if
he had not yet found one? Is that not the conclusion
that arises naturally in the presence of the artist’s
works, so numerous and so varied?2

What is interesting about Planche’s questioning is that it

conveys the impression that, beginning in 1834, Delacroix’s
submissions to the Salons did not reflect as consistent a plan
as did the works he had exhibited at the Salons of the 1820s.
(The exception was the Battle of Nancy, see cat. 69, commis-
sioned in 1828 and a product of its time.) The later works
display a bewildering diversity of textual and stylistic refer-
ences, as can be seen by examining Delacroix’s participation
at the Salons held between 1833 and 1849.
After his trip to Morocco in the first half of 1832, the
artist had barely enough time to submit a few watercolors and
portraits to the Salon of 1833. His return to history painting
was evident in 1834, with Women of Algiers in Their Apartment,
a large-­format Moroccan genre scene done in the manner of
Veronese (see cat. 83), and in 1835, with Christ on the Cross, his
first Christian martyrdom, which was greatly influenced by
Rubens (see cat. 85). The following year, Delacroix exhibited
a second Christian martyrdom, Saint Sebastian, in which cer-
FIG. 35The Justice of Trajan, 1840. Oil on canvas, 16 ft. 15/16 in. x 12 ft. 99/16 in.
tain motifs were indebted to Michelangelo and Rubens but (4.9 x 3.9 m). Musée des Beaux-­Arts, Rouen (inv. D 1844.1) (J 271)
the overall composition of which is usually associated with
Venetian influence (see cat. 90). He showed only one work at
the Salon of 1837, Battle of Taillebourg, a large picture commis- and 1841, the splendor of Delacroix’s palette burst forth, and
sioned for the Musée de l’Histoire de France at Versailles, the critics were enchanted by his remarkably rich, luminous
clearly inspired by Rubens’s Battle of the Amazons (1615; Alte grandes machines. The Salon of 1840 was dominated by the
Pinakothek, Munich). This was followed in 1838 by a scene spectacular Justice of Trajan (fig. 35), an ancient subject that
from Greek mythology, Medea About to Kill Her Children (see Delacroix had discovered in Byron and treated with the elo-
cat. 94), in which critics noted a curious mix of Correggio, quence of Veronese and Rubens. This was followed in 1841 by
Michelangelo, and Rembrandt. It was accompanied by a sort three submissions: Entry of the Crusaders into Constantinople
of genre painting, Convulsionists of Tangier, a large outdoor (fig. 36), his second medieval history painting commissioned
Moroccan scene (see fig. 34). for Versailles; a Byronian Shipwreck (see cat. 98) that evoked
The following year, at the Salon of 1839, both of Gericault and embodied the results of Delacroix’s own first
Delacroix’s submissions drew on Shakespearean sources, but seascape studies; and a genre scene, Jewish Wedding in Morocco,
to very different effect. The open, well-­balanced Hamlet and in which architecture plays a leading role (see fig. 31).
Horatio in the Graveyard, his second painted version of the Troubled by ill health and absorbed in major decorative
subject (cat. 96), was set against the monumentality of the works, Delacroix abstained from exhibiting for three years in
Caravaggesque Cleopatra and the Peasant (see cat. 95). In 1840 a row, returning in 1845 with large compositions that seemed

DRIVEN TO GREATNESS: 1833–54 99

 Entry of the Crusaders into Constantinople, 1840. Oil on canvas, 13 ft. 57/16 in. x 16 ft. 41/16 in. (4.1 x 5 m). Musée du
FIG. 36
Louvre, Paris (3821) (J 274)

solemn and somber compared with those he had shown the a large, austere, neo-­Caravaggesque meditation (see
Salons of 1840 and 1841: Last Words of Marcus Aurelius (1844; cat. 106); and, even more remarkable in the highly charged
Musée des Beaux-­Arts, Lyon), a tribute to the great Roman political context of the Salon of 1849, the darkest, most
emperor and Stoic in which Delacroix measured himself against Rembrandtesque version of the Women of Algiers in Their
Poussin’s Death of Germanicus (1627; Minneapolis Institute of Apartment (see fig. 32), accompanied by an Othello and
Art) and David’s Death of Socrates (1787; Metropolitan Desdemona imbued with the same atmosphere of mystery (see
Museum); The Sultan of Morocco and His Entourage (fig. 37; fig. 116). These two submissions contrasted sharply with a pair
see also cat. 138), with a static character, majesty, and silence of neo-­Baroque floral compositions, opulent and densely
that are diametrically opposed to the turmoil in The Justice of filled (see cats. 109, 110). A series comprising paintings as
Trajan; and finally, a Cumaean Sibyl inspired by Dante and heterogeneous as these came across as incomprehensible,
a Mary Magdalene in the Wilderness, each massive, sculptural, impossible to relate to a unified, well-­thought-­out strategy: the
and enigmatic in its way (see fig. 122). A change of course was submissions to the Salon were obviously inconsistent from
discernible in the Salons of 1846 and 1847: Delacroix dis- one year to the next. However, the best-­informed critics
played only small paintings invoking his memories of Morocco understood that Delacroix was employing at least three differ-
and the Romantic literary references of his youth—Shakespeare, ent strategies at once: the transposition and elaboration of
Scott, Byron, Goethe—sometimes reinterpreted after old experiments carried out in the large decorative programs;
lithographs. The Salon of 1848 offered additional surprises, ceaseless dialogue with Rubens; and further development of
with the exhibition of The Lamentation (Christ at the Tomb), his own repertoire of favorite motifs.

100 DELACROIX
FIG. 37The Sultan of Morocco and His Entourage (Moulay Abd-­er-­Rahman, Sultan of Morocco, Emerging from His Palace in Meknes, Accompanied by His Guard
and Principal Officers), 1845. Oil on canvas, 12 ft. 73/16 in. x 11 ft. 31/16 in. (3.8 x 3.4 m). Musée des Augustins, Toulouse (inv. 2004 1 99) (J 370)
 FIG. 38 Eastern wall of the Salon du Roi, Assemblée Nationale (Palais Bourbon), Paris, featuring the frieze painting War (Bellum) and
the pier paintings The Seine (Sequana) and The Rhone (Rhodanus), 1833–37. Oil and wax on plaster

A number of the historical compositions that Delacroix (see fig. 79), The Entombment of Christ—and profane—The
presented at the Salon can be understood as the visible por- Lion Hunt, Hippopotamus and Crocodile Hunt (see fig. 59),
tion of a creative output with a center of gravity that lay else- Abduction of the Daughters of Leucippus (see fig. 101), The Battle
where—in the monumental decorative works. Enormous but of the Amazons.
largely inaccessible, these projects were an essential source of A third driving force of his art was superimposed on
renewal in his painting. Gautier, Planche, and an anonymous the first two. The recurrence of the same subjects in succes-
critic at L’artiste, likely tipped off by the painter, seem to have sive submissions to the Salon reveals that an increasing share
been the first to realize this. of Delacroix’s output followed the principle of repetition
The second thread Delacroix pursued was a dialogue with variations. That is, the artist reprised his own earlier
with the masters, particularly Rubens, who was for him the subjects and motifs, most of which originated in the late
absolute and infinitely prolific master. Delacroix was stimu- 1820s and early 1830s. Saint Sebastian, for example, exists in no
lated by every new encounter with Rubens’s masterpieces fewer than six versions. Such extensive self-­referentiality adds
during his visits to French museums in Nancy, Bordeaux, and to the complication of interpreting Delacroix’s work. The
Rouen and in Belgian churches, but also through engravings. “reprises,” usually in small formats, were no doubt a form of
He entered into competition with the Flemish master and relaxation for the painter, who enjoyed retracing his own
regularly sought to cross swords with him by reinterpreting steps, free of competition, to develop an early idea along new
his seminal works, both religious—Christ on the Cross, Christ lines. They also satisfied the demand of the burgeoning art
at the Column (The Flagellation), Christ Calming the Sea market and thus served a commercial purpose. On a deeper

102 DELACROIX
level, however, it seems that they were prompted by a reflex- The passion that enabled him to surmount so many obstacles
ive proclivity characteristic of the now-­mature artist, who was cannot be explained solely by the prestigious nature of the
alert to the passage of time and its effect on his oeuvre. commissions. Mural painting resonated deeply with his new
ambitions, which were those of a mature artist aware that the
strategy of his early years, which focused almost exclusively on
The Canvas and the Wall the Salon, no longer sufficed.
The failure of The Death of Sardanapalus (see fig. 20) at
Delacroix’s interest in large mural decoration, now well the Salon of 1827–28 is usually seen as having broken the
known, arose in the 1830s. As early as 1830–31, he competed momentum of Delacroix’s career, provoking a phase of dis-
for the opportunity to decorate the wall behind the rostrum of couragement that lasted several years. Then came the
the Chamber of Deputies in the Palais Bourbon, seat of the Revolution of July 1830, which rid him of the enmity of the
Assemblée Nationale, though the sketch he submitted was vicomte Sosthènes de La Rochefoucauld, director of fine arts,
rejected (see cat. 70). In 1838 the decoration for the Salon du followed by the trip to Morocco in 1832, which opened up
Roi (fig. 38), entrusted to the artist five years earlier, had only new perspectives. These events have long been understood as
just been completed when he was awarded a commission for the positive, liberating factors that enabled the artist to strike
the decoration of the library in the Chamber of Deputies
(fig. 39). The assignment resulted from his efforts to secure a
project “that would satisfy my need to work big, [a need]
which becomes insistent once you’ve had a taste of it,”3 and it
occupied him for a decade. Its execution was slowed by his
acceptance in 1840 of two additional mural projects: the
cupola and hemicycle of the Peers’ Library at the Palais du
Luxembourg (fig. 40) and the Chapel of the Virgin at
the church of Saint-­Denys-­du-­Saint-­Sacrement (see fig. 48),
commissioned by the prefecture of the Seine. The same
year, Delacroix accepted a commission to create cartoons for
stained-­glass windows for the Manufacture Nationale de
Sèvres. During the advent of the Second Republic, between
1848 and 1851, he even tried having himself named director of
the manufacture des Gobelins.4 Under the republican govern-
ment led by Napoleon Bonaparte, he received commissions
for two Parisian projects: a section of the ceiling in the
Louvre’s Gallery of Apollo (1849–51; see fig. 53) and a chapel
in the church of Saint-­Sulpice (1849–61; see figs. 69, 70). In
addition, the City of Paris asked him to decorate a salon in the
Hôtel de Ville (1851–54).
Plagued by frequent illness from 1842 onward, Delacroix
was obliged to delegate to assistants parts of the considerable
labor required to execute these projects. It was the first time
he had taken such a step. Inevitably, there were disagreements
with the architects, patrons, and his own assistants, and the
work took a toll on his fragile constitution. Despite all that, and
despite the decidedly poor financial compensation he received FIG. 39 Interior view of the Deputies’ Library, Assemblée Nationale (Palais
when compared to what he earned for his highly prized small Bourbon), Paris, featuring ceiling paintings by Delacroix, 1841–47. Oil
paintings, Delacroix left none of these undertakings unfinished. and wax on plaster

DRIVEN TO GREATNESS: 1833–54 103

FIG. 40 Dante and the Spirits of the Great, 1841–45. Diam. 22 ft. 4 in. (6.8 m). Detail of cupola of the Peers’ Library, Palais du Luxembourg, Paris

out in new directions. However, careful examination of streak of good fortune ended in 1828, when the department of
Delacroix’s early relations with the administration leads to a museums refused to purchase The Death of Sardanapalus or any
different hypothesis, one that attributes the leveling off in the of his other submissions to the Salon of 1827–28. The painter
artist’s career trajectory not to supposed hostility from the had surely gone too far in asserting his artistic singularity, but
department of museums under Charles X but to something the refusal was based above all else on the administration’s
rather different. belief that Delacroix was sufficiently well represented at the
In fact, the painter had achieved his professional objec- Musée du Luxembourg and found it more judicious to con-
tives at a very young age and as a result quickly found himself tinue its support in the form of commissions. It did so gener-
at an impasse. It was the young Delacroix’s ambition to ously; however, commissions imposed significant constraints
achieve glory by having his works exhibited in museums while and resulted in the dispersal of his works. Each commission
preserving his originality through his participation at the was for a specific site and came with a preselected subject,
Salons. He had the extraordinary privilege of having one of format, and deadline for completion. Delacroix was loath to
his paintings admitted to the Musée Royal des Artistes Vivantes see his major history paintings sent off to museums far from
the first time he participated at the Salon, in 1822. At the age Paris (see cat. 69) or to locations in the capital that were
of twenty-­four, ahead of some of his most promising fellow relatively inaccessible. For example, the third room of the
artists from Guérin’s studio (Théodore Gericault, Léon Conseil d’Etat at the Louvre, where Emperor Justinian, commis-
Cogniet), Delacroix secured a place alongside David, sioned in 1826 (see cat. 28), was displayed, was open to the
Prud’hon, and Girodet at the Musée du Luxembourg. The public for only a few days during the Salon of 1827–28, and
museum acquired a second work by Delacroix in 1824. This Christ in the Garden of Olives (see cat. 17) was hung high in the

104 DELACROIX
 CAT. 68 The Battle of Poitiers, 1830

transept of the church of Saint-­Paul-­Saint-­Louis.5 In the case Salons of 1831 (Liberty Leading the People) and 1834 (Women of
of one private commission, The Battle of Poitiers (cat. 68), the Algiers in Their Apartment) (cat. 83). The bright spell was
artist was obliged to take legal means to obtain the return of short, however. Liberty Leading the People was quickly relegated
the painting after his patron, the duchesse de Berry, was to storage for political reasons, and Delacroix failed to win the
forced into exile. competition of 1830–31 for two historical compositions des-
Although the change of regime in 1830 and the trip to tined for the Chamber of Deputies (cat. 70). In the end, the
Morocco in 1832 provided him with breathing room, they works by Delacroix that the state acquired after 1834 were
were not sufficient to revitalize his art over the long term. most often bought by the Ministère de l’Intérieur and not by
In the early days of the July Monarchy Delacroix hoped once the intendance de la Liste civile, which oversaw acquisitions
again that he would see more of his history paintings enter the selected by the king for the department of the Musée du
Musée du Luxembourg. He was not disappointed; the depart- Louvre and the Musée du Luxembourg. Because the Ministère
ment of museums made purchases at the conclusion of the de l’Intérieur was responsible for procuring works of art for

DRIVEN TO GREATNESS: 1833–54 105

 Delacroix spoke from experience: he had already observed
the deterioration of Christ in the Garden of Olives (cat. 17),
which had hung in the transept of the church of Saint-­Paul-­
Saint-­Louis since its completion. In 1837 Théophile Thoré
reported that “the moisture [was] beginning to dull the col-
ors.”7 In 1855, when it had become “barely visible under the
layers of mold and varnish,” Delacroix restored it in order to
display it at the Exposition Universelle. He was afraid that, by
returning it to the church, “given the height at which it [was]
placed and the difficulty of maintaining it, it [would] perish
within a few years.”8
Does that explain why for ten years, between 1837 and
1846, Delacroix chose not to display large religious composi-
tions at the Salon? His strategy at least ensured that paintings
acquired by the Ministère de l’Intérieur would be sent to
CAT. 70 Boissy d’Anglas at the Convention, sketch, 1831 museums and not churches. In 1838, the year after he exhib-
ited the Battle of Taillebourg, commissioned for the museum
at Versailles, Delacroix submitted Medea About to Kill Her
provincial churches and museums, the large compositions by Children (see cat. 94), which the ministry bought and sent to
Delacroix that the administration purchased were systemati- the Palais des Beaux-­Arts, Lille. At first, the artist protested
cally sent away from Paris. Christ on the Cross (see cat. 85) was vehemently, insisting that the work be purchased by the inten-
dispatched to the church of Saint-­Paterne in Vannes, and Saint dance de la Liste civile for the Musée du Luxembourg. The
Sebastian (see cat. 90) was acquired for the church of Saint-­ Ministère de l’Intérieur, no longer run by Adolphe Thiers but
Michel in Nantua at the request of a deputy from the depart- by the comte Duchâtel, refused to give in. It merely agreed to
ment of Ain. Delacroix was sorry to see these scenes of have the painting lent to the Paris museum for a year before
martyrdom transported to churches. He had not intended being sent permanently to Lille.
them for religious institutions but rather to be placed in Delacroix expressed his resentment to his friend
­museums, next to masterpieces of religious art. Furthermore, Edmond Cavé, head of the division des Belles-Lettres et des
he worried about the damage his works would suffer at the Arts à l’Intérieur at the Ministère de l’Intérieur: “I accept the
hands of uncomprehending clergy and in the poor atmo- proposal you were kind enough to make on the minister’s
spheric conditions of churches. behalf, though the temporary exhibition at the Musée du
These fears were confirmed some twenty-­five years later, Luxembourg far from fulfills my objective, which was to ensure
as documented in an alarmist letter Delacroix sent to the state that the painting would not leave Paris.”9 The next acquisition
finance minister, Achille Fould: by the Ministère de l’Intérieur was the occasion for further
wrangling: The Justice of Trajan (see fig. 35), exhibited at the
I have learned that this work [Christ on the Cross, Salon of 1840, was acquired two years later for the Musée
cat. 85], long placed in a dark, damp chapel of the des Beaux-­Arts, Bordeaux. Delacroix was fond of the city,
church [Saint-­Paterne, Vannes], is threatened with where his father had been prefect and where his elder brother
complete destruction if the situation continues. I take lived, but he lacked confidence in the upkeep of the museum’s
the liberty of appealing to Your Excellency, to ask if facilities and believed the site was too far from Paris. He seized
it might be possible to have the city return the threat- the initiative, convincing the mayor of Bordeaux to trade the
ened painting to Paris. . . . In addition, it was suggested painting for another, and once more appealed to Cavé: “I saw
to me that the unfavorable place allotted to my painting the mayor of Bordeaux, who would be open to an exchange
might be explained by a Mary Magdalene figure that for the Trajan. You know how much I desire that, in the first
the clergy did not find sufficiently draped.6 place, it go to Rouen, and, in the second, that it not go to

106 DELACROIX
Bordeaux. I’m convinced they do not even have a place high children.”14 Thus, whenever he could, he reserved the right
enough for it. The painting would be left in a corner, rolled to do the necessary retouching of his works himself. In 1860
up for who knows how long, as others have been that he treated The Barque of Dante, the cracks of which, caused
deserved better.”10 He won his case and had The Justice of by differences in drying times of the layers of paint, had
Trajan assigned to the Musée des Beaux-­Arts, Rouen. become obtrusive.15
Likewise, in 1845, when the Ministère de l’Intérieur Baudelaire provided a revealing account of Delacroix’s
announced its intention to acquire Last Words of Marcus concerns:
Aurelius for the Musée des Beaux-­Arts, Toulouse, Delacroix,
not satisfied with that painting, arranged with Cavé to substi- One of the painter’s major preoccupations in his final
tute the Sultan of Morocco (see fig. 37), which had just been years was the judgment of posterity and the uncertain
exhibited at the Salon of 1845.11 After 1834, when the state material durability of his works. Sometimes his sensitive
purchased its last Delacroix painting for the Musée du imagination was inflamed by the idea of immortal glory,
Luxembourg, the artist was able to see only one more of his sometimes he spoke bitterly of the fragility of canvases
works enter that museum: Jewish Wedding in Morocco (see and paint. On other occasions he mentioned with envy
fig. 31). The painting was donated by the crown prince, the the old masters—nearly all of them—who had the good
duc d’Orléans, a major patron of the arts and the owner of fortune of having their paintings reproduced by skillful
Delacroix’s The Murder of the Bishop of Liège (cat. 64), among engravers . . . and he ardently regretted not having found
other works by the artist, immediately after he purchased it. such a translator of his own works. The brittleness of
As he gained experience, Delacroix was increasingly paintings, when compared to the solidity of prints, was
concerned about the destination of his works and their preser- one of the habitual themes of his conversation.16
vation. He had learned about the fragility of oils painted on
canvas, their sensitivity to variations in atmospheric conditions Baudelaire had heard Delacroix speak on these matters; he
and their vulnerability to damage through mishandling. had also read an article Delacroix had published on Prud’hon,
He was therefore deeply affected by the degraded state of whose paintings had deteriorated considerably over time: “All
The Death of Sardanapalus (see fig. 20), which he saw at the the genius in the world cannot prevent a varnish from yellow-
Château des Prés d’Ecoublay in September 1849 following ing, a thin coat of paint from disappearing. . . . All the ele-
the death of its owner, Daniel Wilson. He worried about his ments are the enemies of painting: air and sun, dryness and
“poor painting, which will meet who knows what fate and dampness. And these are not even the cruelest. An ignorant
whose condition at the moment is deplorable: the canvas is retoucher often finishes in a single stroke the work of destruc-
loose; the bottom seam is split along its entire length and held tion that the centuries have not completed.”17
together here and there by stitches.”12 At the end of his life, Confronted with the fateful fragility of his paintings on
he realized that even museums were no guarantee against risk, canvas and frustrated by their systematic and uncontrollable
and that botched restorations were something to fear. He dispersal, Delacroix suffered another spell of inertia. In his
concurred with the disapproval expressed by some members view, the limits of easel painting lay paradoxically in the abso-
of the press when Frédéric Villot, curator of paintings at the lute freedom the practice afforded: the artist, alone in his
Louvre—and, as it happened, a friend of Delacroix’s—­ studio, nose to the canvas, has only self-­discipline to prevent
undertook a contested restoration of Veronese’s Wedding at him from spoiling the work at hand. He can return to it indefi-
Cana in 1853.13 A year later, Delacroix learned that his own nitely, refining or complicating the composition, superimpos-
masterpiece had been stripped of its varnish: “[Louis d’] ing layers of oil and glaze, but he risks losing his way. Over
Arnoux came by during the day. . . . He says that the Massacre the years, Delacroix became persuaded that an artist’s first
[of Chios] was not improved by having its varnish removed; impulse was the right one and that the pleasure of execution
without having seen it, I am almost of the same opinion. Like was a trap that threatened a painting’s unity and originating
the Veronese, the painting will have lost the transparency of idea. He was stimulated by the constraints of the large decora-
its shadows, as is almost bound to happen. Haro . . . spoiled tive works, which required clean, rapid execution and a dis-
the portraits by Uncle Riesener of my two brothers as tanced view. A passage from his Journal written in 1847, as he

DRIVEN TO GREATNESS: 1833–54 107

was completing the decoration for the library of the Palais du Luxembourg were viewed mainly by representatives of the
Bourbon, attests to this: nation who went to the library to read, learn, and meditate
on the meaning of history, taking the great men of the past as
I painted the small figure of the man fallen forward, their models and finding inspiration in them when fashioning
pierced by an arrow, in a few instants. That is the way their laws. In these locations, painting became the vehicle of a
one ought to do painted sketches that would then moral and historical discourse that called for the greatest
have the freedom and freshness of a jotting (croquis). intelligibility even as it assured the serenity of the surround-
Small paintings annoy me, bore me. Easel paintings do ings. By contrast, in the Chapel of the Virgin at Saint-­Denys-­
too, even large ones done in the studio. You wear du-­Saint-­Sacrement, practicing Christians, imploring divine
yourself out ruining them. One should put into large assistance, gave free rein to their emotions and devotional
canvases all the fire that usually goes only onto walls. fervor. There, the register of Delacroix’s painting was one of
Cournault told me that is what Rubens did in his Battle somber pathos and high contrast. Finally, public spaces of
of Ivry in Florence.18 palaces, designed to welcome the eminent guests of a city or
parliament, had to convey the solemnity, pride, and joy result-
It is therefore clear why Delacroix’s first large decorative ing from good government.
project, entrusted to him in 1833, was his road to Damascus: it Delacroix’s taste for large decorative projects was height-
revitalized him in the profound and lasting way that he needed. ened by the notion that he was intervening physically in a
Mural painting satisfied Delacroix’s desire to move about monumental ensemble to which illustrious masters of the past
in his paintings, his “need to work big,” while guaranteeing had contributed, and where his own painting could freely
him stability and continuity.19 He was assured that his paintings engage in dialogue with theirs. That relationship was even
would remain in place and long outlast him, provided that the stronger and more immediate than in a museum. In the
building that sheltered them was sound, located in the historic French royal collections, works by living artists were strictly
heart of Paris, and linked to a prestigious institution, whether separated from those of artists who had died; their produc-
the state (Palais Bourbon, Palais du Luxembourg, Palais du tions were housed in institutions on opposite sides of the
Louvre), the church (Saint-­Denys-­du-­Saint-­Sacrement, Saint-­ Seine. While working in the Palais du Luxembourg, Delacroix
Sulpice), or the city itself (Hôtel de Ville). It must have was conscious of the fact that he was the successor of Philippe
seemed to him that by integrating his paintings morally and de Champaigne and, even more, of his idol, Rubens. But his
materially into a great monument of Paris, he would achieve most immediate link to tradition occurred when he painted,
an immortality comparable to that offered by a museum. starting in 1850, the central compartment of the ceiling of
The large decorative projects compelled him to innovate the Gallery of Apollo at the Louvre: the work was at the heart
on a regular basis, and for this reason, too, they were stimulat- of a painted, sculpted, and ornamental program overseen two
ing. Every site, by virtue of its architectural configuration centuries earlier by Charles Le Brun, the premier peintre of
(caissons, cupola, apse, hemicycle), function (library, gallery, Louis XIV.
chapel, vestibule, reception hall), and preexisting artistic Delacroix’s activity as a decorative painter, as demanding
features, required him to devise a tailor-­made solution and as it was, did not put an end to his work as an easel painter.
explore new iconographic territory. He also had to evaluate He pursued the two practices simultaneously, believing they
carefully how the works would be received. The paintings for were complementary. In fact, the large decorative murals—
the Salon and the museum, seen frontally and fairly close up, except for those in churches, which were sometimes poorly
dramatically engaged a diverse, inquisitive audience made up lit—were not easily accessible. The decorations done for the
of art critics and the urban public. Paintings in palaces and Palais Bourbon or the Palais du Luxembourg, apart from the
churches, seen from a greater distance, tower over and envelop few days after their unveiling when they were discussed by a
viewers. Delacroix’s works at the Palais Bourbon and the Palais small group of journalists, were visible only as a special favor

CAT. 138 The Sultan of Morocco and His Entourage, 1856

108 DELACROIX
or by invitation, and were not reproduced and disseminated of the child figures, whether putti, winged spirits, or urchins,
as engravings. The regular frequency and public nature of to fill in the smallest vacant space. Critics were somewhat
the Salon therefore remained invaluable to Delacroix. That disconcerted by the joyful crush of bodies: “My primary
venue allowed him to give the public and the critics a sense criticism of M. Delacroix is that his figures are all crammed
of the renewal that his painting was undergoing elsewhere, together, and his planes are not sufficiently layered.”20
in the context of architecture and the great tradition. Farther down, the overcrowding verges on the comical.
It is therefore fruitful to ask to what extent the challenges On the piers, deities of the rivers and seas of France are repre-
raised by his large works conditioned and shaped his easel sented as stone sculptures painted in trompe l­’oeil gris­aille
paintings (see fig. 37 and cat. 138). What role did Delacroix heightened with blue and gold. The bodies of the voluptuous
assign to these paintings? Were they primarily a sort of an Sequana (The Seine) and the solidly built Rhodamus (The
echo chamber, a medium in which to further elaborate the Rhone) seem to contort inside undersize niches. The illusory
mural experiments? Or could they also serve as a testing space carved out around the voluminous figures, which are
ground, a laboratory? Between 1833 and 1855, Delacroix rendered more in the round than in bas-relief, is inadequate
appears to have applied three successive and overlapping to contain them. They seem to burst open the frame and leap
artistic approaches in these works. out from the wall.
Playing mischievously with the architectural setting and
casually rivaling sculpture, Delacroix suffused the work with
The First Large Decorative Experiment: an abundance that created an impression of clutter—to the
The Grammar of Bodies point of disorder and overload. He developed a particularly
carnal grammar of bodies: the figures are monumental, heavy,
Delacroix’s first public commission for a large decorative and extensively modeled; their flesh is pink or bronze. When
work, the Salon du Roi in the Palais Bourbon (see fig. 38), not half-­naked, most are draped in colored wool trimmed
was confirmed by decree on August 31, 1833, by Adolphe with silk accessories. They conjure an unspecified traditional
Thiers, then minister of trade and public works. The architec- Mediterranean society between ancient Rome and the
tural framework, a rigid Neoclassical setting— symmetrical, Morocco Delacroix had recently discovered. And they seem
highly compartmentalized, lit only indirectly—was unforgiv- to give off heat, to possess a vitality bursting with energy. The
ing. Within this space, Delacroix had to elaborate a fully atmosphere they create is a far cry from the chilly abstraction
allegorical program extolling national prosperity. The square so often associated with allegorical painting.
plan of the salon determined the selection and placement of While feigning difficulty in containing the lively crowd,
four female allegories, each presiding over one side of the the artist maintained close control over the figures’ symbolic
room, representing Agriculture and Industry, sources of role. He guaranteed their aesthetic unity and avoided any
French abundance, and Justice and War (Bellum), forces cumbersome realism, thus averting the inexorable obsoles-
inspiring respect for the monarchy both inside the country cence of modern dress and naive adherence to the ideology
and abroad. These four figures, represented in reclining poses of progress or any other social discourse. In contrast to their
in the narrow, horizontal ceiling compartments, identify the counterparts in Massacres at Chios (see fig. 5), painted ten
theme developed vertically in the friezes. There, a throng of years earlier, the figures here possess none of the individual
about sixty figures of men, women, children, and elderly traits of the professional models who posed for them. The
people nearly covers the turquoise ground. Having received faces are hardly distinguishable from one another or are
permission to remove the carved band beneath the cornice, simply obscured by shadow or an overlapping arm. All the
Delacroix had just barely sufficient room to establish a con- figures, whether young or old, bear the same trademark,
nection between the spandrels, defined by the arched shape recognizable in their bodily proportions and the standardiza-
of the bay windows. Making the most of the complex surface tion of their faces.21 They are not individuals but painted
thus obtained, he emphasized it as he pleased, filling each figures invented by the same hand and animated by the same
section to the maximum with piled-­up, huddled bodies that creative principle. They are differentiated only by the roles
crawled and slid over the arches. Delacroix made abundant use they play in the present, not by personal histories or destinies

110 DELACROIX
that would have granted them the autonomy to escape the he has intuited them without copying them and that he
total control of their demiurge. belongs to the great family of true painters. . . . There
Such saturation of the space—tumultuous but never is something of Veronese in the fresco on which he
exorbitant—was certainly influenced by the festive spirit of painted Justice; there are memories of Roman art in the
Mannerist court art, masterfully represented in France by the fresco that represents Agriculture; there is something
painted and sculpted decorations of Rosso Fiorentino, then of of Michelangelo in the admirable figure of the black-
Niccolò dell’Abate, for the Château de Fontainebleau, decora- smith in the foreground of the frieze where the emblems
tive works considered the first expression of a French national of War are depicted. But overall, despite the allegorical
style. In the early 1830s, they were the object of an unprece- style, the ensemble has a character so modern, so new,
dented surge in interest led by the ornamentalist painter Claude that it is clear the artist has studied the admirable
Aimé Chenavard and befitting the taste of the time. Delacroix qualities of the great masters, but without becoming
is known to have visited the Château de Fontainebleau in early such a slave to any of them that he imitates their flaws.25
January 1832; it was his first stop en route to Morocco.22 Other
references to the French Renaissance were on his mind when In addition to elaborating a grammar of bodies for the
he laid the groundwork for the decoration at the Salon du large decorative works, Delacroix was obliged to modify his
Roi. In the margins of a drawing study for the fictive niches on palette in order to create light in a place where the architec-
the pilasters, Delacroix noted, for the base, “see the pedestal ture afforded very little. Tasked with producing the illusion
for Germain Pilon’s graces,” a reference to the Monument to the that the walls had been breached and the space opened up to
Heart of Henri II (1561; Musée du Louvre).23 radiant skies to ensure his work’s legibility, he had to reject
Without imitating the elongated bodies of the School of the easy solution of using dark grounds to highlight the fig-
Fontainebleau, Delacroix adopted the playful refinement and ures; he also had to convert contrasting values into contrasting
theatricality of its art, qualities that allow the figures to play colors. Delacroix brightened his palette, warmed his shadows,
their role in a painted narrative while creating the illusion of and chose sky-­blue grounds to create an impression of lumi-
complicity with the viewer by means of an outward gaze. nosity and air. Those measures, first applied in the Salon du
Théophile Gautier rightly recognized this influence in the Roi, were fully mastered in the cupola of the Peers’ Library
Salon du Roi: nearly ten years later (see fig. 40). The critics hailed him:

Were it not for the gloomy style of the architecture, In the cupola of the Luxembourg, the victory won by
which dispels the illusion, you might believe, upon M. Delacroix over the miserliness of M. de Gisors [the
seeing these cheerful and luminous paintings, that you architect] can be considered a real tour de force. The
were in a Renaissance hall decorated by some artist painter was in some sense obliged to create the light
summoned from Florence—Primaticcio or Il Rosso. he needed to illuminate his figures. He had to seek in
The style is that elegant and supple, and these beautiful the tone of the draperies, the hue of the sky, the rays
allegorical women, nude or caressed by light draperies, that the architecture refused him. It was an arduous
have about them just such an air of royalty and familiar- struggle, but the painter emerged the victor in that
ity with magnificence.24 fierce battle: he metamorphosed shadow into light.26

Alexandre-Gabriel Decamps, though he missed the reference This paean from Gustave Planche was echoed by Gautier:
to Fontainebleau, sensed that Italian roots had been tapped: “By the magic of his palette, this painting illuminates itself;
the colors do not receive daylight, they provide it.”27
It is indisputable that modern art has never given us The first painterly adjustments that Delacroix made
works better able to invoke the style and execution of when he undertook the large decorative paintings found their
beautiful Italian paintings. Remarkably, M. Delacroix way into several history paintings done during the course of
has never traveled to Italy; he has not seen the frescoes the Salon du Roi project or immediately after its completion.
of Venice or Florence or Rome. But it so happens that It is possible that they appeared as early as 1834, in the

DRIVEN TO GREATNESS: 1833–54 111

 CAT. 90 Saint Sebastian Tended by the Holy Women, 1836

112 DELACROIX
ornamental abundance and monumental placidity of Women of (cats. 91, 94). In a less exaggerated manner but following a
Algiers in Their Apartment (see cat. 83). His mural practice process identical to that used for the river and sea deities,
made its full migration to the studio two years later, with Saint Delacroix inscribed the larger-­than-­life figure of Medea in an
Sebastian (cat. 90), exhibited at the Salon of 1836. Although intentionally shallow setting, a cave where, abandoned by the
Delacroix very clearly borrowed the overall composition and unfaithful Jason, the queen would commit infanticide. The
the saint’s pose—head tilted to one side, collapsed torso, sculptural quality of that scheme was fundamental to the work,
and stiff, spread legs—from Rubens’s Lamentation (ca. 1612; already present at the earliest stage of its development. Several
Liechtenstein Museum, Vienna), he radically distinguished preliminary drawings indicate that Medea and Saint Sebastian
himself in the general tone, which is much less cold, gray, and were conceived at the same time (fig. 41). The charitable saint
macabre than the one chosen by the Flemish master. In fact, and murderous queen, unlikely pendants brought together on a
in the Saint Sebastian, sorrow is transcended by the solid single sheet, seem to have occurred to the painter primarily as
volumes, simplified forms, and radiating force of a warm and complementary figures; the drawing studies provide no infor-
slightly acid palette. Also taken from the Salon du Roi are the mation about the overall compositions or how the figures
turquoise blue ground, which sets off the rosy flesh tones and would be framed. Like trompe ­l’oeil statues in grisaille, the
red drapery, and the shallow, elliptical background, with its figures are modeled in a pen-­and-­ink wash on an undifferenti-
surprisingly flat trees and grassy embankment. The faces are ated ground.
schematic, generic, and obscured by shadows. Consequently, Planche, well informed about the decoration of the
the main narrative function rests with the bodies themselves, Salon du Roi by the time it was unveiled in October and
whose proportions relative to the frame are colossal, unprece- November 1837, linked the work to Medea About to Kill Her
dented in Delacroix’s history painting. The saint’s massive Children in his review of the Salon of 1838: “[Medea] is, to
body is worthy of Michelangelo’s Slaves. His powerful muscu- be sure, a painting of rare merit, perhaps the most beautiful
lature is accentuated by the raking light; his undersize head that M. Delacroix has ever produced, since in it you find
dissolves in the shadows, while his dramatically foreshortened all the qualities he has developed one after another in the
hands and feet project forcefully outward, toward the viewer. decoration for the Salon du Roi at the Chamber of Deputies.”30
Gustave Planche aptly described the changes he saw: Théophile Gautier confirmed the soundness of Planche’s
“M. Eugène Delacroix’s Saint Sebastian will confound the assertion:
expectations of many. Those who have attentively followed
the projects the artist has undertaken and completed in the The Chamber of Deputies, which is not yet known to
last fourteen years will be astonished by this new transfor- the public . . . is worthy of the best stanze of Rome and
mation of an adventurous and innovative genius.”28 Planche the most vaunted scuole of Venice. These allegorical,
explained that he had not yet been able to see the room mythological paintings, altogether unusual for M.
Delacroix had painted at the Chamber of Deputies, but Delacroix, are additional proof of the marvelous sup-
another, evidently better-informed critic, who wrote for pleness of his talent. Over the course of this major
L’artiste, promptly made the connection. He too began by project, these paintings will no doubt influence the
emphasizing the impression produced by Saint Sebastian, painter’s future. He has adopted a more expansive,
which was so unlike the clamor of Delacroix’s grandes machines grander manner; he has inserted sobriety in his color,
at the Salons of the 1820s. Then he added: “If, therefore, decorum in his style. He has made his spirit bow to all
you look with attention . . . you will notice in the figure of the architectural requirements, has confined himself
the saint, especially in the torso, a grand and simple style, an within bizarre compartments and unforgiving shapes.
expansive and vigorous execution. No doubt the decorative It is an excellent study and will affect the paintings he
projects executed by the artist at the Chamber of Deputies will do subsequently. . . . Medea About to Kill Her
contributed to the development of these qualities.”29 Children is linked to the same order of ideas that pro-
Parallel to the last phase of decoration of the Salon du duced the frescoes in the throne room [the Salon du
Roi, which ended with the large trompe l’oeil grisailles on the Roi]. It is an ancient subject worked out with modern
piers, Delacroix worked on Medea About to Kill Her Children intelligence and in forms more human than ideal.31

DRIVEN TO GREATNESS: 1833–54 113

 CAT. 91 Medea About to Kill Her Children, sketch, ca. 1836

FIG. 41Studies for Saint Sebastian and Medea, ca. 1835. Pen and brown wash, 71/2 x 123/8 in. (19.1 x
31.5 cm). Palais des Beaux-­Arts, Lille (inv. Pl. 1279)
CAT. 94 Medea About to Kill Her Children (Medée furieuse), 1838
 modeled on John Hayter’s 1827 portrait of Pasta in the role
and costume of Medea.33 Virginie Bernast has suggested, “if
Delacroix heard Madame Pasta in the role of Medea, the
memory of that performance was likely revived by Giulia
Grisi’s Norma at the Théâtre-­Italien in Paris between 1835 and
1847. . . . Like Medea, the Druid priestess Norma is tempted
to commit infanticide after Pollione, a Roman proconsul,
abandons her for . . . Adalgisa.”34
It is possible that this play of references was also at work
in Delacroix’s oeuvre: with Medea, he made an astonishing
return to the twin theme of Greece and tragedy—the two
were forever linked in his mind—by painting a peculiar kind
of pendant to Greece on the Ruins of Missolonghi (see cat. 26),
although this was certainly not his intention. That work fea-
tures an allegorical figure of modern Greece, successor to the
golden age of antiquity, weeping over her enslavement and the
murder of her children by the Ottoman Turks. A decade later
Delacroix proposed, with Medea, a mirror image—the repre-
sentation of a Greece prior to civilization. Savage, intuitive,
animalistic, Greece herself is the one who kills her offspring.
The formal self-­reference is obvious: as in Missolonghi, the main
action is kept offstage; echoes of Liberty Leading the People are
evident in the protagonist’s face turned in profile, her bare
breasts, and the position of her legs.35 In addition to the self-
reference, Delacroix alluded to the great masters of the past to
an unparalleled degree in Medea. The pyramidal composition is
FIG. 42 Andrea del Sarto (Andrea d’Agnolo) (Italian, 1486–1530). a reference—particularly jarring, even parodic in this context—
Charity, 1518–19. Oil on wood transferred to canvas, 7213/16 x 5315/16 in. of Andrea del Sarto’s Charity (fig. 42), while the sculptural
(185 x 137 cm). Musée du Louvre, Paris (712)
force of the queen is inspired by Michelangelo’s three-­
dimensional works. Delécluze posited a connection between
Medea About to Kill Her Children was Delacroix’s first Correggio’s Venus and Cupid with a Satyr (formerly known as
large painting on a mythological theme and marked a decisive Sleep of Antiope) and the velvety softness of Medea’s skin. By
point of transition in his career. Yet the subject had preoccu- contrast, the rosy, glistening flesh tones of the children seem
pied him for a long time, as attested in a notebook entry from unquestionably Rubensian, while their whimpering expressions
the early 1820s and by the famous comment he wrote in his and wriggling postures seem to be borrowed directly from
Journal after returning from a performance of Gioachino Rembrandt’s The Rape of Ganymede (fig. 43). Far from eliciting a
Rossini’s Moses in Egypt at the Théâtre-­Italien in March 1824: smile, these commonplace signs of terror render the horrifying
“I am preoccupied by Medea.”32 He had probably been truth of the situation, that of children who sense that they are
reminded of Simon Mayr’s opera Medea in Corinth, performed about to die at the hands of the person in whom they have
in Paris in 1823 with Giuditta Pasta in the title role. It is worth naturally put their complete trust.36 Delacroix made ingenious
considering whether, fifteen years later, the memory of Pasta’s use of the narrative power of the lighting: as the shadow cast by
performance contributed to the artist’s own interpretation of the dagger onto the child’s thigh symbolically cuts into its flesh,
Medea, in oil. He rendered her in perfect left profile, her the mother’s blinding hatred is evoked by the penumbra that
upper face masked in shadow, crowned with a gold diadem swallows up her gaze. At the same time, her brightly lit breasts
set with precious stones and pearls. It appears that she was and hands accentuate her monstrous animality.

116 DELACROIX
 The painting was a total success with the critics, convert-
ing even the most traditional among them. They praised
Delacroix for applying his unique talent (that of using color to
express the intensity of life’s most savage aspects) to a tragic
subject enshrined in ancient and humanistic literature but
lacking an iconic counterpart in the art of Greco-­Roman
sculptors and modern masters. In Medea, Delacroix summed
up the complexity of narrative and character in a compact,
autonomous group, borrowing from sculpture this means for
conveying content without providing context. He thereby
succeeded in inventing an iconography, the canonical force of
which was equal to that of the Laocoön.
Delacroix’s subsequent emulation of sculpture was less
pronounced and more fragmentary: he opted for half-­length
representations (The Cumaean Sibyl, undertaken the same year
as Medea but exhibited at the Salon of 1845) and even tighter
framing. For example, the enigmatic head of Mary Magdalene
in the Wilderness (rejected by the Salon of 1845; see fig. 122)
seems to have been torn off a statue or a tomb effigy. His last
real success involving sculptural borrowings was Cleopatra and
the Peasant (cat. 95), exhibited at the Salon of 1839. The sub-
ject may have been inspired by act 5, scene 2, of Shakespeare’s
tragedy Antony and Cleopatra. The defeated queen, preferring
suicide to the humiliation of the Roman victory, stoically
ponders her own death, which takes the form of an asp that a
peasant has secretly delivered to her in a basket of figs. This
Shakespearean meditation on the vanity of power and the
world posits Cleopatra and the Peasant as the female pendant to
Hamlet and Horatio in the Graveyard (see cat. 96), also exhibited FIG. 43 Rembrandt (Rembrandt van Rijn) (Dutch, 1606–1669). The Rape of

at the Salon of 1839. Delacroix avoided the Baroque conven- Ganymede, 1635. Oil on canvas, 6911/16 x 5013/16 in. (177 x 129 cm). Staatliche
Kunstsammlungen, Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden (inv. 1558)
tion of representing the queen in her death throes, preferring
to depict the moment just before she was bitten by the ser-
pent. References to ancient art are still present. Cleopatra Delacroix intensively in the early 1840s. He was obliged by
assumes the melancholic pose of the Roman goddess Pudicitia, the studious atmosphere to employ his formidable powers
while the peasant’s coarse features are borrowed from those of of invention in a more serious and serene register than he
sculpted satyrs or Greek comic masks. Delacroix revitalized had in the Salon du Roi. In addition to the two hemicycles,
these appropriations from the antique, giving the peasant’s one at each end of the library, there were five cupolas to
thick hands vibrant reddish highlights, darkening the figures’ decorate. Each cupola was dedicated to a specific theme—
hair, and accentuating the sparkle of the jewels and the sheen Law, Philosophy, Theology, Poetry, the Sciences—and each
of the fur. was supported by four hexagonal pendentives. The challenge
This type of composition—with its monumental, three-­ was threefold: to make erudite and little-­known subjects
quarter-­length figures standing out against a dark ground— comprehensible; to bring them to life even though they per-
can probably be related to the library project at the Palais tained less to actions than to ideas; and to counter the effect
Bourbon (see fig. 39). The latter, commissioned in the sum- of monotony that the large number of pendentives—twenty
mer of 1838 and completed at the end of 1847, occupied in all—would likely produce.

DRIVEN TO GREATNESS: 1833–54 117

 CAT. 95 Cleopatra and the Peasant, 1838

FIG. 44Lycurgus Consults the Pythia, study for a pendentive in the Deputies’ FIG. 45Hesiod and the Muse, study for a pendentive in the Deputies’
Library, Assemblée Nationale (Palais Bourbon), Paris, ca. 1838–42. Pastel Library, Assemblée Nationale (Palais ­Bourbon), Paris, ca. 1838–47.
on gray paper, 95/8 x 125/8 in. (24.5 x 32 cm). Musée du Louvre, Paris Watercolor and gouache on brown paper, 811/16 x 11 in. (22 x 28 cm).
(RF 32259) (Johnson 1995, no. 9) Musée du Louvre, Paris (RF 4773)

118 DELACROIX
 CAT. 114 Michelangelo in His Studio, 1849–50

Delacroix infused his designs with variety and at the Ovid among the Scythians, and Lycurgus Consults the Pythia (see
same time forged a formal typology by giving each subject fig. 44), the meditative pose of which repeats that of
type a distinct compositional schema. For example, great men Cleopatra in Cleopatra and the Peasant, cat. 95). Reclining
of virtue and sacrifice are represented as central, monumental figures shown one above another (Numa Pompilius and the
figures (Hippocrates Refusing the Gifts of the King of Persia, Nymph Egeria, Hesiod and the Muse, see fig. 45) and figures
Archimedes Killed by the Soldier, The Death of Seneca, Cicero partly superimposed (Adam and Eve Driven from Paradise,
Accusing Verres, Demosthenes Haranguing the Waves, The Death Socrates and His Demon, Michelangelo and His Genius) usually
of Saint John the Baptist). Figures positioned on steps running embody the inspiration that mysteriously unites the human
the length of one side symbolize a link between spiritual and the divine.37 He would continue to explore the themes
and worldly power (Alexander and the Heroic Poems of Homer, embodied by such works, as he did in Michelangelo in His
Herodotus Consults the Magi, Aristotle Describes the Animals, Studio, an easel picture undertaken in 1849–50 (cat. 114).

DRIVEN TO GREATNESS: 1833–54 119

FIG. 46The Education of Achilles, study for a pendentive in the Deputies’ FIG. 47Spartan Girls Practicing Wrestling, study for a pendentive in
Library, Assemblée Nationale (Palais Bourbon), Paris, ca. 1838–47. the Deputies’ Library, Assemblée Nationale (Palais Bourbon), Paris,
Graphite on paper, 97/16 x 12 in. (24 x 30.5 cm). Musée du Louvre, ca. 1838–47. Graphite on tracing paper, 811/16 x 101/2 in. (22 x 26.6 cm).
Paris (MI 1079) Musée du Louvre, Paris (RF 3713)

Isolated formal inventions of a more audacious sort painters of the seventeenth century. The contrast between
include a fantastic beast—the centaur Chiron—ridden by the the queen’s noble melancholy and the peasant’s rustic charm
young hero in The Education of Achilles (see fig. 46); the use of suggests a link to the art of Valentin de Boulogne. Last Words
empty space to evoke the sublime (The Chaldean Shepherds, of Marcus Aurelius (Musée des Beaux-­Arts, Lyon), which
Inventors of Astronomy); and, to fill the composition, the cho- Delacroix exhibited five years later, at the Salon of 1844,
reographic division and dispersal of a figure group to the relied on the dark, austere style of Poussin’s Extreme Unction
three arms of a pendentive. Exemplifying this last approach is (1638–40; Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge), thus confirming
Spartan Girls Practicing Wrestling (fig. 47), which anticipated the turn Delacroix had taken.
by twenty years Edgar Degas’s treatment of the same rarely
encountered subject (National Gallery, London). The work
was never completed, perhaps because it was judged to be Second Experiment: Concentration
ill suited to a studious, exclusively male setting. The extraordi- and Unity of Emotion
nary formal inventiveness applied in all the pendentives
would later provide Delacroix with motifs that he would The succession of dark, spare, and intense religious scenes
develop as easel paintings or pastels. that Delacroix exhibited at the Salons in the late 1840s (Christ
Yet Cleopatra and the Peasant (cat. 95) shows that another on the Cross in 1847, see cat. 103; Christ at the Tomb in 1848, see
artistic influence was also at work in his studio practice, one cat. 106) stands in stark contrast to the luminous robustness of
that had nothing to do with the large decorative commissions Saint Sebastian Tended by the Holy Women from the Salon of 1836
in the Palais Bourbon. The vigorous chiaroscuro modeling (see cat. 90). Here again, a comparison with the large decora-
of the figures, rendered half-­length on a brown ground, tive projects sheds light on the experimentation—stemming
reveals Delacroix’s new orientation toward the Caravaggesque from a different source—that led to these disparate results.

120 DELACROIX
Like the Moroccan subjects, religious painting was not a displayed at the Salon of 1835. That painting, however, was not
monolithic genre within Delacroix’s oeuvre but changed intended to be placed in a church; rather, the artist conceived
radically with the specific concerns of each commission. it as a reinterpretation of Rubens’s Christ on the Cross (The
After the unveiling of the Salon du Roi and the launch of Coup de Lance) (1620; Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp)
the Deputies’ Library project in 1838, the painter was entrusted, even before seeing the original in Antwerp in 1839. Delacroix
in 1840, with the decoration of the Chapel of the Virgin at diverted attention from the pathos of the Virgin, who is sup-
the church of Saint-­Denys-­du-­Saint-­Sacrement (see fig. 48). ported by Saint John on the left, to the muscular, suntanned
This was Delacroix’s second religious commission from the laborer carrying the ladder on the right. Mary Magdalene,
prefecture of the Seine, for which he had painted Christ in her garments and hair disheveled, prostrates herself at the foot
the Garden of Olives in 1824–26 (cat. 17). And it was the first of the cross on which Christ hangs lifelessly; behind her, a
involving a mural decoration, an opportunity Delacroix was crucified thief writhes in agony. As early as 1829, in an inti-
not about to miss. Since the success of the first decorative mate painting for his mistress, Eugénie Dalton, Delacroix had
paintings at the Palais Bourbon, he had been well aware that, explored the provocative, nearly licentious contrast between
when it came to secular decorations in civic buildings, he had the dying Christ and the anguished sinner (Museum of Fine
earned the trust of the public authorities. They were still wary, Arts, Houston).
however, about his paintings for churches. Delacroix knew At Saint-­Denys-­du-­Saint-­Sacrement, Delacroix was deter-
that, from the administration’s perspective, the project he was mined to be taken seriously as a religious painter (fig. 48).
taking on at Saint-­Denys was merely a consolation prize. Inspired by the spatial configuration of the chapel and its
Fifteen years later, he recalled the situation when, at a private dedication to the Virgin, he initially composed an Annunciation
gathering, he had run into the comte de Rambuteau, former scene (fig. 49). Following famous examples by Raphael and
prefect of the Seine, who had been dismissed following the Ingres, he imagined transforming the chapel into a theatrical
revolution of 1848. Delacroix noted with some bitterness: space. Above the altar—the stage of the Christian drama—
he placed two angels pulling back a large red curtain to reveal
The old ruffian! All the time he was prefect he never the scene. It unfolds in a simple room, its back wall punctu-
said a word to me except to warn me not to ruin his ated by a half-­open door that creates the illusion of extended
church of Saint-­Denys-­du-­Saint-­Sacrement. They had space. While the room and its main furnishing, a large,
originally offered [Joseph-Nicolas] Robert-­Fleury the green-­canopied bed seen in central perspective, recall the
commission for this thirteen-­foot [sic] picture, at six Annunciations of the Flemish Primitives, the radiant glory of
thousand francs, but he did not feel inclined to accept the Virgin and the clouds carrying the archangel Gabriel echo
it and suggested that I should do it instead, of course Baroque painting. Delacroix ultimately abandoned his initial
with the consent of the directors. Varcollier [head of idea in favor of a Pietà exalting the Virgin’s suffering. He
the division of the Fine Arts at the prefecture], who at wavered about whether or not to keep the red draperies
the time knew neither myself nor my pictures as well as drawn open by angels (see cat. 100) before deciding on a
he does now, consented rather contemptuously to this more austere, rocky setting (see cat. 101), and he reversed the
exchange of artists; but I always understood that the composition to adapt it to the lighting in the chapel. After
prefect was more difficult, owing to his lack of confi- many delays involving the clergy, he was finally able to paint
dence in my meager talents.38 the work on the chapel wall in the winter of 1843–44 with
the help of his assistant Gustave Lassalle-­Bordes.
The prefectoral officials probably knew that the clergy had The Baroque effect of a theatrical performance was
little appreciated the religious paintings by Delacroix that replaced by the more archaic evocation of artificial caves
had been sent previously by the Ministère de l’Intérieur. The or low, arched niches containing sculptural representations of
prospect of entrusting a chapel dedicated to the Virgin to the Entombment. The principal reference for the overall
such a painter may have raised fears of a particularly inoppor- composition has been identified as a Pietà painted by Rosso
tune glorification of the flesh. The prefect might have recalled Fiorentino about 1530–40 for Anne, duc de Montmorency,
the tumultuous sensuality of the Christ on the Cross (cat. 85), the Constable of France (see fig. 50). Delacroix transcribed

DRIVEN TO GREATNESS: 1833–54 121

CAT. 85 Christ on the Cross, 1835
FIG. 48 Pietà, 1844. Oil and wax on plaster, 11 ft. 73/4 in. x 15 ft. 7 in. (3.5 x 4.7 m). Church of Saint-­Denys-­du-­Saint-­Sacrement, Paris (J 564)

The Annunciation, 1841. Oil on paper, laid down on canvas, 121/4 x 173/16 in. (31.2 x 43.7 cm).
FIG. 49
Musée National Eugène-­Delacroix, Paris (inv. MD 1988–8) (J 425)
 CAT. 100 Pietà, first sketch, by 1843

the key features of this work: the rocky setting in tight focus; powers would successfully avert pastiche and guarantee the
the compact group of holy men (Nicodemus, Joseph originality and unity of his composition. His experienced use
of Arimathea, John the Evangelist) and women (Mary of color to model flesh—understood as the vehicle for the
Magdalene, Mary of Clopas) forming a square around the expression of extreme suffering—served to energize the dry
Virgin; Mary Magdalene fervently grasping Christ’s wounded lines of his model. Exploiting the viscous consistency of oil
feet, recalling their first encounter. The Italian master’s inge- mixed with wax, he gave material presence to the ravages of
nious inventiveness is faithfully rendered. The Virgin, head death and suffering, mimicking sweating skin, reddened eyes,
tilted and arms spread wide, assumes the pose of her son on bloody wounds, streaming tears, and decomposing flesh. The
the cross. Giving herself over to grief, she, too, appears expressionist qualities imparted by that medium combine,
to be dying; her gray and green flesh tones blend with those however, with the solid grouping of the figures. The figures’
of the corpse resting against her. The union of mother and cohesion is enhanced by their powerful contours and a con-
son in death is paired with a symbolic restaging of childbirth. centric distribution of color: in the center, the fusion of the
Delacroix adopted the fetal pose of Il Rosso’s Christ but ashen bodies of Christ and the Virgin; surrounding them, the
replaced the model’s Mannerist elegance with a stiffer posture. vivid reds of the mourners’ flesh and attire; and framing all,
Delacroix did not conceal his debt to Il Rosso’s Pietà, the setting, which echoes, in darker shades, the blue and
probably confident in the knowledge that his own expressive green harmonies of the central figures. It seems that Delacroix

124 DELACROIX
 CAT. 101 Pietà, second sketch, by 1843

FIG. 50 Rosso Fiorentino (Italian, 1494–1540). Pietà, ca. 1530–40.

Oil on wood, transferred to canvas, 50 x 643/16 in. (127 x 163 cm).
Musée du Louvre, Paris (594)

DRIVEN TO GREATNESS: 1833–54 125

 Despite the darkness of the chapel and the artist’s dissat-
isfaction—Delacroix complained that he was denied the right
to add his finishing touches—the painting’s critical success
allowed him to believe he had risen to the challenge and that
other commissions for church decorations might follow. They
were not long in coming. By January 1847, Edmond Cavé,
director of the arts division at the Ministère de l’Intérieur, had
led him to hope that he would be entrusted with the decora-
tion for the transepts of Saint-­Sulpice.39 Delacroix thus had
the opportunity to develop rapidly the expressive means he
had employed in the Pietà. Only two years after completing
that commission, he used the same principles in an even
simpler, vertical composition: his most contemplative version
of Christ on the Cross (cats. 102, 103). He modeled the work,
an easel painting, on Pierre Paul Prud’hon’s Christ on the Cross
(1822; Musée du Louvre).40 Initially commissioned for the
cathedral of Strasbourg, Prud’hon’s painting went instead to
the Musée du Luxembourg—a particularly enviable fate in the
eyes of Delacroix, who published a laudatory article on the
elder painter during the same period.41 In Delacroix’s 1846
Crucifixion scene, the pallid body of Christ, whose face is
obscured, rises up amid bluish shadows. When viewed from
afar, it constitutes the primary source of light in the painting,
as austere and solid in appearance as its neo-­Caravaggesque
model. Closer examination reveals blood streaming supernatu-
CAT. 102 Christ on the Cross, sketch, 1845
rally from the figure’s hands to its feet, even to the point of
causing revulsion. Viscous and brilliant, the fluid is fashioned
with multicolored strokes using the technique of flochetage
was working on this scheme in the sketch now in the Louvre over the entire length of the body. The flood of vermilion
(cat. 101). The work began as a powerful line drawing in ink, is augmented symbolically by the crimson banner of the
over which the artist applied paint in colored masses, some Roman knight in the background and the coagulated coats
thickly impastoed and laid down with a knife, others more of paint in the sunset on the horizon. Above Christ’s head, the
fluid, applied with a brush. The chiaroscuro is exaggerated traditional sign bearing the charges against him is implausibly
and the colors bold, but the structure holds together. outsized, heavy, and limp, metamorphosed into the serpent
The painter has caught the beholder’s gaze in a trap. of evil.
Once drawn in by the Pietà’s concentric force, the viewer’s Christ on the Cross was followed directly by Christ at the
gaze circles continuously within the virtuoso composition, Tomb (cat. 106), the beginnings of which were recorded in
picking up subtle echoes in the protagonists’ faces, hands, and Delacroix’s Journal in January 1847, under the title “Christ
arms. Worshippers, caught up in the work’s anguish, would laid out on a stone, mourned by the holy women.”42
be motivated to repeat their prayers. The Pietà thus marks Delacroix, now more self-­assured, departed from the closed
Delacroix’s return to the intense pathos of Massacres at Chios, schema of the Pietà of Saint-­Denys-­du-­Saint-­Sacrement
but with one essential difference: the scattered, centrifugal (see fig. 48). Probably guided by the structure of an
composition of the painting of 1824 was succeeded twenty Entombment by Rubens of which he owned a painted copy—
years later by the extreme concentration and dramatic unity of the original was then (as now) in Cambrai—he loosened the
the religious mural. composition and let it breathe by dividing the figure group

126 DELACROIX
CAT. 103 Christ on the Cross, 1846
CAT. 106 The Lamentation (Christ at the Tomb), 1847–48
into subgroups.43 The Lamentation scene occupies the lower drawing vanish as you add details to it, a great deal more
part of the frame; in the background, the desolate landscape of that impression remains than you will manage to put
of Mount Golgotha is punctuated with three crosses. The into it if you proceed in the opposite fashion.45
light, used with great economy, seems to emanate solely from
the livid body and white shroud of Christ, laid out on the Delacroix deliberately sought to reverse the creative process
tomb. The other protagonists and the landscape are painted in he had followed in his youth, notably, the one he had used
varied but very muted tones; Saint John’s bare chest, shaded for Massacres at Chios, which he was probably reminded of as
by his bent head, is as dark as the other figures’ clothing. he reread his Journal of 1824. This meant not rushing to the
The color notes in the artist’s Journal indicate that earth tones canvas and beginning with the particulars of each figure, a
(umber, green earth, burnt green earth) played a decisive method that would necessitate creating unity after the fact,
role.44 Christ’s stiff corpse, its skeletal structure showing with highlights and glazes. On the contrary, the entire elabo-
through under the pallid skin, is modeled in two tones ration of the painting had to be grounded in the preparatory
(bluish-­white and gray-­green), which blend under the effect study’s “tone and the effect”—its large, colored shapes, light,
of chiaro­scuro. Gore is represented discreetly. Abandoning and shadows—with as little deviation as possible, because
Rubens and his sensual eloquence, Delacroix here seems that method guaranteed unity. He returned to this subject in
deliberately to have followed in the footsteps of Jusepe de detail the very next day.
Ribera and Rembrandt, taking asceticism to a level unequaled
in the rest of his oeuvre. He was inspired, perhaps, by the One of the great advantages of [doing] a lay-­in by tone
masterpieces in the Galerie Espagnole that Louis-Philippe and general effect, without worrying about the details,
established at the Louvre in 1838. is that you need to put in only those that are absolutely
Delacroix derived lasting satisfaction from the high necessary. Beginning by completing the backgrounds,
degree of dramatic and formal unity he achieved in Christ at as I have done here, I have made them as simple as
the Tomb. The work even seems to have played a key role in possible so as to avoid their appearing overloaded
his artistic experimentation. It is probably no coincidence that beside the simple masses that still represent the figures.
in January 1847, just as he was starting the painting, he began Conversely, when I come to finish the figures, the sim-
once more to keep a journal. For the first time since Massacres plicity of the backgrounds will allow—even ­compel—
at Chios (painted between January and August 1824), Delacroix me to put in only what is absolutely essential. Once the
reported daily on the development of a painting he intended sketch has been brought to this stage, the right thing to
to show at the Salon. From the start, he used the Journal to do is to carry each part as far as possible, and to refrain
reflect on his working process. He no longer seemed preoc- from working over the picture as a whole, assuming, of
cupied with finding subject matter or inspiration; rather, he course, that the effect and tone have been determined
was concerned about mastering its execution. Determined this throughout. What I mean is, that when you decide to
time to preserve the integrity of the whole as he originally finish a particular figure among others as yet only laid
conceived it, he invested a considerable amount of time in the in, you must be careful to keep the details simple, to
ébauche, or preliminary laying-­in of the composition: avoid being too much out of harmony with figures that
are still in the stage of a sketch.46
After lunch, I resumed work on the Christ at the Tomb:
it is the third session on the ébauche; . . . I got it going Delacroix thus formulated a system to prevent himself
again in a lively manner and prepared it for a fourth from working on all parts of a painting simultaneously. He
pass. I am satisfied with this ébauche; but how to set a level of completion not to be surpassed in one part of
preserve the overall impression that results from very the composition (the background, in the present case), then
simple masses while adding details? Most painters—and applied that limit to the rest. When work proceeds on all
I did this too in the past—begin with the details and elements at the same time and on the same level, “the eye
create the effect at the end.—Whatever regret you feel becomes accustomed to details, when they are introduced
when you see the impression of simplicity in a beautiful gradually into one figure after another, and in all at the same

DRIVEN TO GREATNESS: 1833–54 129

sitting, and the painting never seems finished. First disadvan-
tage of the method: the details smother the masses. Second
disadvantage: the work takes much longer to do.”47 Delacroix
invoked these precepts until the end of his life, though he
was not always able to adhere to them. For example, in 1860
he wrote: “There are two things that must be learned: the first
is that one must correct a lot; the second is that one must not
correct too much.”48
Christ at the Tomb was sold to comte Théodore de Geloës
d’Elsloo even before it was shown at the Salon of 1848.
Delacroix was pleased when he saw it again, as he reported in
his Journal on February 16, 1850, after a visit to the collector’s
home in Paris.49 He borrowed the painting for his retrospec-
tive at the Exposition Universelle of 1855 and, with the memory
of the work still fresh in his mind, noted in December of that
year his delight in the unity of the scene. “It inspires an emo-
tion that astonishes even me. You can’t pull yourself away, and
not a single detail calls out to be admired or distract attention.
It’s the perfection of this art [painting], whose aim is to produce
a simultaneous effect. If painting produced its effects in the
manner of literature, which is but a series of successive scenes,
there would be some justification for the detail to stand out.”50
It is likely that the success of Christ at the Tomb encour-
aged Delacroix to develop his new approach to form by apply-
ing it to other subjects, including some taken from secular
literary sources. The Death of Valentin (fig. 51), after Goethe’s
Faust, painted the same year and also exhibited at the Salon of
The Death of Valentin, 1847. Oil on canvas, 321/4 x 259/16 in. (82 x 65 cm).
FIG. 51
1848, would demonstrate this talent to the public. The scene
Kunsthalle Bremen—Der Kunstverein in Bremen (inv. 552-­1948/12) (J 288)
depicts the aftermath of Valentin’s fateful duel with Faust and
Mephistopheles (depicted in plate 11 of the 1828 suite of
lithographs; see cat. 50), as the collective lamentation for the holy women and disciples.”51 Saint Stephen Borne Away by His
murdered victim begins. But the pale, stiff silhouette that Disciples was finally completed for the Salon of 1853 (cat. 130).
attracts the light in the center of the painting is not Valentin: it The format and the main lines of the composition are similar
is Marguerite, his errant sister, consumed with remorse and to those of Christ at the Tomb, but the dark rocks have been
condemned by the curses of her dying brother, who takes on replaced by the ramparts of Jerusalem, and Stephen’s body
the role of martyr. The dark cliffs of Christ at the Tomb are faces right rather than left, like Christ’s. The kneeling figure
replaced by city buildings unified by their uniformly treated in the foreground is no longer a tearful Saint John meditating
brown facades even as, sunlit in the distance, three pinnacles on the crown of thorns but a holy woman wiping the blood
of the church replace the three crosses of Golgotha. from the steps where the stones that killed Stephen still lie.
Such adaptations of a literary subject remained rare during The intense physicality of the two female figures in the fore-
this period. More often, he chose to represent Christian ground (both have vigorous bare arms, and one, an exposed
martyrs, a theme that he would take in a far more harrowing bust) tempers the austerity of the scene. The entanglement of
direction than he had in the Saint Sebastian at Nantua (see bodies is more complex and disjointed than in Christ at the
cat. 90), as the artist noted in his Journal on December 14, Tomb, but the restricted palette, underscored by stark chiar-
1847, “Saint Stephen, after being stoned, gathered up by the oscuro effects, is even more severe than in the earlier work.

130 DELACROIX
CAT. 130 Saint Stephen Borne Away by His Disciples, 1853

131
 CAT. 17 Christ in the Garden of Olives (The Agony in the Garden), 1824–26

132 DELACROIX
 CAT. 125 The Agony in the Garden, 1851

In an atmosphere of red, earth-­tone, and gray harmonies, the with brilliant touches of white to represent the lines of
only precious luminous notes lie in the white dawn and the mortar between the stones. Tempera lends itself admi-
green chasuble fringed with gold falling from the saint’s upper rably to such simple effects because the colors do not
body. The naive, almost Symbolist character of the architec- blend together as they do in oil painting. Several
tural setting echoes many other paintings by Delacroix: the sky towers or castellated battlements stand out against the
with its long, glowing horizontal streaks is a distant revival of very simply painted sky, and are detached from one
the skies in the much earlier Massacres at Chios (see fig. 5) and another solely through the intensity of the tone.53
Hamlet and Horatio in the Graveyard (see cat. 86). The impene-
trable opacity of the walls, composed of a series of cubes, is Delacroix was emboldened by the new mastery of emotion
cast into relief by the rain of fire. Their shape derives from that he achieved by using a dark palette. He was no longer
Delacroix’s memory of the ramparts at Meknes, but their almost afraid to take on subjects that he would have judged
biblical simplicity is probably indebted also to theatrical sets, unrewarding for their lack of moral ambiguity signified, in
which the artist admired for their effectiveness: part, by the visually exuberant details that were a prominent
feature of his early paintings. He no longer hesitated to paint
Saw I Puritani [by Vincenzo Bellini, at the Théâtre-­ the absolute solitude of Christ in extremis. Therefore, in
Italien]. . . . The moonlight scene at the end is superb, the early 1850s, he returned to the subject of Christ on the
like everything that the designer in this theater does.52 Mount of Olives, which he had first painted in 1824–26
I think he obtains his effects with very simple colours, for the church of Saint-­Paul-­Saint-­Louis (cat. 17). In contrast
using black and blue and perhaps umber, but they are to that early composition, in which Jesus fends off the coming
well understood as regards the planes and the way in torture with a theatrical gesture, the later one shows him
which one tint is placed above another. A very simple reduced by anguish to crawling on the ground, like a beast at
tone was used for the terrace at the top of the ramparts, bay (cat. 125). Any human companionship (sleeping apostles

DRIVEN TO GREATNESS: 1833–54 133

 CAT. 112 Christ at the Column, probably 1849

or approaching soldiers), any visible supernatural presence requires an incredible degree of sublimity for this ridiculous
(angels), is denied him. figure not to ruin the whole picture. . . . The blood-­streaked
Delacroix’s new interest in Christ’s solitary suffering back, the head, so wonderfully expressive of the fever of suffer-
may explain why the artist never painted the scene of his arrest, ing, the one arm that can be seen, are all indescribably beauti-
however dramatic its potential. It was the scene of Christ’s ful.”54 In keeping with these observations, Delacroix excluded
flagellation that held his attention at the dawn of the 1850s. That any presence that would have competed with that of the martyr
motif would have struck a chord for any admirer of Rubens. (cat. 112). He isolated Christ’s figure in a bare stone setting
Delacroix had been dazzled by the Flemish painter’s Flagellation and eliminated the realistic effects of whip marks and bloody
on his first visit to the church of Saint Paul in Antwerp in 1839 wounds, which he symbolically transferred to the red draping
and again eleven years later, when he wrote: “The Flagellation of at Christ’s feet. The subject is reduced to a single motif: Jesus’
Christ . . . a masterpiece of genius if ever there was one. It is throbbing, dripping back, rendered in a virtuoso weave of pink,
slightly marred by the big executioner on the left. It really green, white, and brown brushstrokes. In the second version

134 DELACROIX
 CAT. 124 Pietà, ca. 1850

(Musée des Beaux-Arts, Dijon), dated 1852, the silhouettes of a of sinuous bodies in three-­quarter profile, can probably be
few soldiers appear under the vault in the lower left corner, but traced to the central panel of Rubens’s Christ on the Straw
the light is reduced even more. The draping loses its brilliance, (1618; Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp), a Lamentation
the column is darker, Christ’s legs and face vanish in the shad- Delacroix saw in the Cathedral of Our Lady in Antwerp
ows, and the rendering of his hair is no longer vibrant and during his visit there in 1850. The scene is considerably sim-
refined. Light emanates solely from his tortured back and bound plified in comparison to its counterpart at Saint-­Denys-­du-­
hands, their gleam accentuated by the contrast with the filth of Saint-­Sacrement (see fig. 48). It features the mouth of a cave,
the shirt and the notice plastered on the wall to the right. The two figures, and a harmonious balance of three bright colors
picture’s dramatic and formal intensity is radically distilled. (blue, white, and red) amid cool tones (gray, green, and
During this same period, Delacroix executed his most brown). The outstretched arms of the Virgin no longer recall
concentrated version of the Pietà (cat. 124). The vertical, those of Christ on the cross but extend toward her son as she
tightly framed composition, featuring a compact arrangement leans to her left, her body’s curve echoed by the cave’s rocky

DRIVEN TO GREATNESS: 1833–54 135

 CAT. 140 Lamentation over the Body of Christ, 1857

profile. While her face is relatively inexpressive, her posture, more luminous and brightly colored, probably at the request
nearly identical to that of the dead Christ, conveys her mater- of the dealer Jean-Hector Bouruet-­Aubertot in 1857 (cat. 140).
nal suffering. She seems to want to protect her son from the The same is true for the subject of Christ on the Cross, to
world’s hatred. In so doing, she shields him from the light; which Delacroix returned in 1853 at the instigation of another
it touches only the white shroud, leaving his ashen face and dealer, Adolphe Beugniet (fig. 52).55 For this reprise, he
torso sheltered in his mother’s midnight-­blue embrace. reversed the composition of Christ on the Cross exhibited at the
That Pietà, Delacroix’s simplest and most compact Salon of 1847 (see cat. 103) and replaced the dark atmosphere
expression of the theme—a lithograph by Célestin Nanteuil of that earlier work with the murky light of an overcast sky.
after the painting would later captivate Vincent van Gogh—by The vaporous clouds have a lightness and clarity rivaling that
no means exhausted the subject or achieved perfection in the produced by pastel, a medium he was using during this period
painter’s eyes (Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam). He returned for other versions of the same subject, but on paper.56 Delacroix
subsequently to the composition recorded in a sketch (see also made deliberate reference to earlier works. For example,
cat. 101) for the mural at Saint-­Denys-­du-­Saint-­Sacrement. in the 1847 picture Mary Magdalene recalls her role in the
He produced a new version with variations, less dramatic but treatment of the theme exhibited at the Salon of 1835 (see

136 DELACROIX
 Third Experiment: Explosion and
Whirlwind of Colors

At the turn of the 1850s, Delacroix achieved an astonishing,

almost contradictory diversity in his painting. He had just
distinguished himself at the Salon of 1848 with the extraordi-
nary gravity of Christ at the Tomb (see cat. 106) and the dramatic
tension of The Death of Valentin (see fig. 51) when, the next year,
his submissions to the following Salon cast him in a completely
new light. They included two large outdoor views of flowers
and fruit and two sumptuous interiors, one lighthearted (Women
of Algiers, fig. 32), the other tragic (Othello and Desdemona; see
fig. 116). The luxury and sensuality in these paintings are
striking when considered in the context of the workers’ upris-
ing of June 1848, the first French presidential campaign, the
competition for the allegory of the Republic, and the honors
and medals awarded for the first time to exponents of unvar-
nished rural realism—Théodore Rousseau, Rosa Bonheur,
and Gustave Courbet. Delacroix’s gesture was interpreted as a
sign of retreat from the modern world, in line with the reac-
tionary skepticism he was unafraid to display in his correspon-
dence during the same period.57 It is certain that the artist was
deeply disturbed by the outbursts of violence that followed the
events of February and June 1848. The sacking of the Palais
Royal, which brought about the destruction of his Cardinal
Richelieu Saying Mass, must have come as a hard blow.58 But
Christ on the Cross, 1853. Oil on canvas, 2815/16 x 231/2 in. (73.5 x
FIG. 52
the Bonapartist sympathies of his lover Joséphine de Forget, a
59.7 cm). The National Gallery, London (inv. NG6433) (J 460)
close friend of Charles-Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte, were
rewarded when the latter was elected as the first president
of France in December 1848. Beginning in January 1849,
cat. 85); the same might be said for the figures supporting the Delacroix was invited to soirées at the Palais de l’Elysée and to
swooning Virgin in the later painting, who recall the Virgin sit in the presidential loge at the Opéra.
supporting Saint John in the earlier one. Certainly the pros- It is risky to take the political reading of the large floral
trate apostle with bronze flesh tones clothed in green drapery still lifes any further. However, there is good reason to con-
in the later work echoes his counterpart at the lower left of sider them in the context of the artist’s new commissions for
Christ on the Mount of Olives exhibited at the Salon of 1827–28 large decorative projects. In 1846 and 1847, Delacroix had
(see cat. 17). completed the mural paintings commissioned for the Palais
What emerges is that the most compelling phase of Bourbon and the Palais du Luxembourg. As the reign of Louis-
Delacroix’s religious painting occurred between 1847 and 1852, Philippe was collapsing, he thus found himself without a
when it reached its expressive height. During these years, public project for the first time since 1833. Commissions were
through the concentration of his compositions and the auster- not long in arriving, however, owing to the good relations he
ity of his palette, the painter demonstrated absolute mastery of enjoyed with the new government, headed by the Prince-­
his pictorial powers. And yet, during exactly the same period, President Louis Napoleon Bonaparte. He learned in April
he was exploring a path leading in the opposite direction, 1849, through his friend the curator Frédéric Villot, that his
toward dynamism and rich decoration. name had been put forward by the architect Félix Duban

DRIVEN TO GREATNESS: 1833–54 137

 Apollo Slays the Python, 1849–51. Oil on canvas, ceiling of the Gallery of Apollo, Musée du Louvre, 26 ft. 215/16 in. x 24 ft. 71/4 in. (8 x 7.5 m).
FIG. 53
Musée du Louvre, Paris (3818) (J 578)

for the project to complete the ceiling of the Gallery of setting. He came into direct dialogue with the most illustrious
Apollo.59 The following month, the Ministère de l’Intérieur masters of the French grand goût: the ornamentalist Gilles Marie
commissioned him to decorate a chapel in the church of Oppenord, who had produced the plans for Saint-­Sulpice
Saint-­Sulpice, a much larger and more prestigious religious at the behest of the regent Philippe d’Orléans; the architect
site than Saint-­Denys-­du-­Saint-­Sacrement. The commission for Louis le Vau; and the painter Charles Le Brun, who in the
the ceiling of the Gallery of Apollo was an extraordinary 1660s had done decorative work for Louis XIV in which he
honor; it gave Delacroix the opportunity to occupy a central, elaborated the prototype for the Royal Apartments at the
permanent position in the most prominent area of the fore- Château de Versailles. Delacroix’s new commissions were also
most museum in the world (fig. 53). These two projects part of a historicist movement that, following the burst of
would allow him to work for the first time in far more historic enthusiasm for Gothic art and the French Renaissance in the
spaces. His previous commissions in the capital were associated 1830s, gave new life to the styles of Louis XIV and Louis XV.
with the completion of new spaces, both in a simplified and That aesthetic, inspired by the restoration of the Château de
streamlined Neoclassicist style by the two architects Alphonse Versailles and its opening as a museum, was taken up and
de Gisors and Etienne Hippolyte Godde. But at Saint-­Sulpice adapted from the early 1840s by the architects and interior
as at the Louvre, Delacroix found himself in a princely Baroque designers Jules de Joly and Eugène Lami; it was also favored

138 DELACROIX
 CAT. 111 Basket of Flowers, ca. 1848–50

by the great patrons of the arts who emerged at that time: floral compositions from most other flower paintings of the
James de Rothschild and the king’s two eldest sons, Ferdinand day, heirs to the spirit of botanical science and its adherence
Philippe, the crown prince, and Louis, duc de Nemours. to the illusionistic, limpid, and meticulous graphic description
Delacroix began the large floral compositions in autumn of each element. The deaths of Pierre Joseph Redouté, in
1848, basing them on studies of flowers and fruit he had done 1840, and Louis Antoine Berjon, in 1843, left only Antoine
the previous summer.60 He resumed working on five of them Chazal and a few other specialized flower painters to perpetu-
in mid-­February 1849, with the intention of exhibiting them at ate the Flemish tradition in Paris. Under attack by weary
the Salon, which opened on May 15. The paintings were, young critics scornful of the “vulgar, nit-­picking florists”
then, contemporaneous with the inception of the two most condemned to produce mere “dining room pictures,” the
prestigious decorative commissions of his career as well as practice was fading.62
with the French revival of seventeenth-­century court art. Only the best-informed critics, such as Théophile
When the critics discovered them at the Salon, where two Gautier, would identify the tradition that Delacroix had
of the five were shown, they recognized immediately “the embraced, one that had been initiated by the seventeenth-­
gravity of the style, the breadth of execution . . . the skillful century painter Jean-Baptiste Monnoyer.63 After training in
arrangement.”61 These qualities distinguished Delacroix’s Antwerp, Monnoyer had introduced to France and then to

DRIVEN TO GREATNESS: 1833–54 139

 FIG. 54A Vase of Flowers, 1833. Oil on canvas, 223/4 x 193/16 in. (57.7 x 48.8 cm). National Galleries of
Scotland, Edinburgh (inv. NG 2405) (J 492)

England the art of the ceremonial still life pioneered by Jan composition marks a growing maturity in its departure from
Davidsz. de Heem. He gave the form unprecedented ampli- the spontaneity of Delacroix’s early bouquets of 1833–34
tude, adapting it to the decoration of the châteaux of Vaux-­le-­ (fig. 54), painted at Frédéric Villot’s home, in Champrosay, and
Vicomte and Versailles and to the design needs of the royal at George Sand’s, in Nohant. Those earlier works, the vivacity
tapestry manufactories of Gobelins and Beauvais. Delacroix’s of which betrays what must have been the messy reality of
painting of a rustic bouquet of syringa blossoms, wild rose, study sessions plagued by drooping stems, fallen leaves, wilted
anemones, wallflowers, and white hydrangea (cat. 111), possi- petals, and fruit rotting around the rustic stoneware pot, were
bly done in the summer of 1848, presents characteristics elaborated in a far more fluid medium, perhaps in emulation
typical of Monnoyer.64 Bursting forth from a modest wicker of similar floral compositions by Paul Huet.
basket set on a front-­facing table, the remarkably light, well-­ The large floral compositions that Delacroix elaborated
balanced arrangement is modeled in depth, with the result over many months for the Salon of 1849 were the products of
that certain flowers are lost in shadow. The artful, precise high ambition. Perhaps the artist had seen, displayed in the

140 DELACROIX
 FIG. 55 Jean-­Baptiste Belin, called Blin
(or Blain) de Fontenay (French, 1653–
1715). Flowers in a Gold Vase, a Bust of
Louis XIV, a Cornucopia, and Armor, 1687.
Oil on canvas, 7413/16 x 633/4 in. (190 x
162 cm). Musée du Louvre, Paris (4464)

FIG. 56 A Vase of Flowers on a Console,

1848–49. Oil on canvas, 531/8 x 403/16 in.
(135 x 102 cm). Musée Ingres,
Montauban (inv. MNR 162) (J 503)

Louvre, the reception piece that Monnoyer’s successor and In the end, A Vase of Flowers on a Console was not exhib-
son-­in-­law, Jean-Baptiste Belin de Fontenay, had exhibited at ited at the Salon of 1849; it was shown for the first time in
the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture in 1687 1855. Delacroix had originally wanted this aristocratic, city
(fig. 55). Belin’s painting attests to the nobility and splendor dweller’s bouquet to be exhibited together with outdoor
acquired by the floral still life under Louis XIV: unprece- flower paintings. As he explained to his friend Constant
dented in dramatic intensity, skillfully linked to sculpture and Dutilleux, “I wanted to get away from the kind of template
architecture, the still life acceded to the ranks of court art that seems to make all flower painters repeat the same vase
and large-­scale decoration. Delacroix’s A Vase of Flowers on a with the same columns, or the same fantastic hangings that
Console partakes in that tradition (fig. 56). The painting serve as background or foil. I have tried to render bits of
depicts the reception area of a palace or large Paris mansion nature as they appear in gardens merely by assembling the
decorated with gilded white woodwork, large mirror, heavy greatest possible variety of flowers inside the same frame and
sheared-­velvet curtain, and marble-­topped gilt-­wood console in a more or less probable manner.”65 However, owing to the
in the style of Louis XIV. Centered in the foreground, a por- setting Delacroix chose—a grand, English-­style park bordered
celain vase with gilded bronze mount sends forth an explosion by tall trees—these floral compositions are both luxurious and
of flowers—a dense arrangement of roses, peonies, gerani- implausible. Basket of Flowers (cat. 109) is luminous, evoking
ums, marguerite daisies, gladioli, wallflowers, cinerarias, and summer through the intense blue of the sky. The composition
poppies—that almost reaches the upper edge of the frame. centers on a precious piece of basketwork artfully overturned
The bouquet’s full size is not immediately apparent, as its to release a flood of flowers (asters, geraniums, dahlias, wall-
shaded, outer portions are camouflaged by the surroundings, flowers, peonies) in warm colors. Above them, a strange
swallowed up by the curtain’s vegetal motif and the blurry arch of morning glories, in preparation for which Delacroix
reflection in the mirror. Evidently placed between two win- produced a splendid pastel study (cat. 108) its leaves dispro-
dows, the bouquet is modeled by these two sources of light: portionately large in relation to the basket, rises from the left
colorful, brightly illuminated flowers mass together in the and unspools in the form of a gallows.
lower portion, while the other half of the arrangement is greatly Basket of Flowers and Fruit (cat. 110), darker and in sharper
muted, seen in contre-­jour against the incoming daylight. contrast, takes autumnal opulence as its subject: against a late

DRIVEN TO GREATNESS: 1833–54 141

 CAT. 109 Basket of Flowers, 1848–49

CAT. 108Arch of Morning Glories, study

for “Basket of Flowers,” 1848/49

142 DELACROIX
 CAT. 110 Basket of Flowers and Fruit, 1849

afternoon sky, the basket seems to collapse under the weight transcendent power, perceptible in the unreal light that bathes
of an impossible heap of fruits and vegetables: peaches, pears, the scene. The atmosphere in these two outdoor still lifes is
melon, eggplants, grapevines, oxheart tomatoes, gooseberry steeped in the marvelous and the fantastic; the plant kingdom
and plum tree branches. As in A Vase of Flowers on a Console, asserts itself with such force that it seems to possess an autono-
Delacroix here used great skill in creating effects of contrast. mous power capable of making one forget that the composi-
The muted colors of the hollyhock bushes that frame the basket tions’ highly artificial arrangements are human inventions.
bring out the brilliance of the fruits in the foreground. The The three large floral compositions were exhibited
soft light emphasizes their smooth or rough textures, and a together at the Exposition Universelle of 1855 and remained in
bright, hazy outline, traced with the brush, gives them a pecu- Delacroix’s studio at his death. In all three, the painter seems
liar radiance. No debris or trace of decay sullies the stone table to have been moved by the desire to saturate the surface,
or the contents of the basket, which is protected by a vegetal sometimes at the cost of an unlikely invasion. He also sought
honor guard. The viewer experiences an almost religious feel- to produce an overall dynamic by carefully attending to the
ing before what looks like an offering on an altar dedicated to a succession of forms and the contrasts of light. The whirlwind

DRIVEN TO GREATNESS: 1833–54 143

 motion that resulted is particularly vigorous in Basket of Flowers
(cat. 109), but it is already present in certain studies, such as the
large watercolor heightened with gouache and pastel formerly
in the Choquet collection (fig. 57). In those works, Delacroix
often chose not to represent the flowers’ stems, but only the
heads, rising up from all sides and defying gravity.
These characteristics are particularly interesting when
linked to the challenges Delacroix faced the following year in
the Gallery of Apollo. There, on the ceiling, he was tasked
with depicting the battle between the Olympian gods and
earthly forces; visible and comprehensible from all sides, the
scene was to create the illusion that the gallery was open to
the sky. These constraints meant that the composition had to
be circular and would have to fill the entire surface allotted to
it. He developed the composition in a series of drawings and
oil sketches (cat. 122).66 The final sketch, elaborated between
April and June 1850 and presented as a modello for the
approval of the architect Félix Duban, shows how Delacroix
FIG. 57 Bouquet of Flowers, ca. 1848. Watercolor, gouache, and pastel
arrived at his formal solution.67 Beginning with the original
highlights over graphite on two sheets of gray paper, joined vertically,
subject (Apollo slays the Python), placed in the center, he
259/16 x 25¾ in. (65 x 65.4 cm). Musée du Louvre, Paris (RF 31719)
summoned a considerable number of secondary figures and
established connections among them (cat. 123). The program
was explained in a booklet that accompanied the invitation to
the unveiling in October 1851:

The god, mounted on his chariot, has already launched

a portion of his arrows; his sister, Diana, flying behind
him, presents him with her quiver. . . . The waters of
the flood begin to subside and deposit the corpses of
men and animals on the mountaintops, or carry them
away. . . . The gods are outraged upon seeing the land
abandoned to misshapen monsters. . . . Minerva and
Mercury dash off to exterminate them, expecting
eternal wisdom to repopulate the lonely universe.
Hercules crushes them with his club; Vulcan, the god
of fire, drives off Night and the impure vapors; and
Boreas and the Zephyrs dry up the waters with their
breath and disperse the clouds.68

To complete the circle, Delacroix added Victory holding

a palm leaf; Iris, messenger of the gods; and finally, “more
timid deities [who] contemplate this battle of the gods and
the elements from a distance”—namely, Juno and Venus with
her procession of cupids. The painter ordered the figures by
CAT. 122 Apollo Slays the Python, sketch, ca. 1850 size. Paradoxically, the most important, Apollo, is also the

144 DELACROIX
 CAT. 123 Apollo Victorious over the Serpent Python, sketch, ca. 1850

smallest, because supposedly the farthest from the beholder, but decorations Charles Le Brun had completed in the gallery
his presence is augmented by the visual power of the golden before the project was suspended in 1679. From Le Brun’s
halo that surrounds him. The figures nearest to the edges are Night, Delacroix borrowed the billowing canopies of green and
the largest. In size and form, they relate to the atlantes, sculpted violet fabric, and from Triumph of the Waters (Neptune and
in stucco, that support the frame of the painted compartment. Amphitrite), the human figures plummeting from the sky. The
This continuity with the ceiling’s sculptural decoration is figure of Diana escorting Apollo is a quotation from the more
particularly striking in the portrayals of the river gods, mon- recent ceiling executed by Prud’hon in the nearby gallery of
sters, and giants at the bottom of the composition. the Louvre, the Hall of Diana.70
Delacroix also adapted his formal and iconographic The swirling, supernatural assemblage of figures in Apollo
repertoire to the ambience of the seventeenth century, known Slays the Python, unprecedented in Delacroix’s history paint-
as the Grand Siècle. The chariot of the Sun is inspired by the ing, owes a debt to his experiments the previous year with the
fountain of the same name carved in 1670 by Jean-­Baptiste flower and fruit compositions. No other subjects had allowed
Tuby for the pool at the west end of the Gardens of Versailles.69 Delacroix to arrange his forms and colors with such freedom,
In addition, the painter appropriated elements from the specifically, a total disregard for the laws of gravity. The artist

DRIVEN TO GREATNESS: 1833–54 145

 returned to the exercise four years later with a more con-
tained subject, the lion hunt, which he had chosen for the
state commission he had won for the Exposition Universelle of
1855. Delacroix had already tried his hand at the central group,
composed of a hunter, his horse, and a big feline. After
Horseman Attacked by a Leopard, which Lee Johnson dated
about 1835–40 (Národní Galerie, Prague), Delacroix further
developed the idea about 1849 with Arab Horseman Attacked by
a Lion (fig. 58) and, after widening the frame, with Tiger Hunt
in 1854 (Musée d’Orsay, Paris).71 In those works, the painter
discovered the ingredients of a master alchemist. The Arab
costume and accessories were a perfect vehicle for swirling
waves of dazzling fabric (red, white, blue) and shining gold-
work. The lion’s attack from below allowed him to entangle
the figures and, by means of dramatic foreshortening, bring
the three heads close together as the limbs radiated outward.
Finally, the rocky setting, sober and mysterious, highlighted
the savage splendor of the three-­headed, twelve-­limbed mon-
ster of fur, gold, and fabric.
Arab Horseman Attacked by a Lion, 1849/50. Oil on
FIG. 58
Emboldened by these experiments, Delacroix opened
wood, 171/4 x 15 in. (43.8 x 38.1 cm). Art Institute of
Chicago, Potter Palmer Collection (1922.403) (J 181)
up and replicated the figure group in numerous works (see,
for example, cat. 133) in what would amount to a virtuoso
performance. In Lion Hunt (cat. 135) he not only included two

CAT. 133 A Lion and a Tiger, Fighting, ca. 1854 FIG. 59Peter Paul Rubens. Hippopotamus and Crocodile Hunt, ca. 1616. Oil on
canvas, 975/8 in. x 10 ft. 63/8 in. (2.5 x 3.2 m). Bayerische
Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Alte Pinakothek, Munich (inv. 4797)

146 DELACROIX
CAT. 135 Lion Hunt (fragment), 1855

CAT. 134 Lion Hunt, sketch, 1854

147
 CAT. 136 Lion Hunt, 1855–56

great cats, three horses, and five hunters but also deliberately For his own Lion Hunt, Delacroix widened the scene and
placed himself in direct competition with Rubens, who had opted for a pyramidal rather than square composition, perhaps
painted four big-­game hunting scenes for Maximilian I, elector under the influence of Rembrandt’s 1641 etching The Great
(later prince-­elector) of Bavaria, beginning in 1615. Delacroix Lion Hunt. With his first sketch (cat. 134), Delacroix moved
had seen the Flemish artist’s Lion Hunt during his visit to the roaring animal to the left of center; he added a lioness and
Bordeaux in 1845 (it would be destroyed in a fire in 1870). made the main hunter’s rearing horse the central axis. The
The others were unknown to him except through the engrav- background reinforces this arrangement with a clump of trees
ings of Pieter Soutman, which he described in his Journal on in the center and the turquoise sky breaking through on either
January 25, 1847. Delacroix’s favorite was the Hippopotamus side. The painter attended closely to the harmonious tangle of
and Crocodile Hunt (fig. 59), the composition of which he forms, adding wounded hunters and horses. These figures,
found particularly effective: “In the Hippopotamus Hunt, the fallen to the ground, struggle to get back up, relaunching the
amphibious monster occupies the center; the riders, horses, action from bottom to top and establishing a circular movement.
and hounds are all attacking it furiously. The compo­sition is Like Rubens, Delacroix took up the challenge of imbuing a
approximately in the shape of a Saint Andrew’s cross. . . . One sense of abundance and triumph in that fight to the death.
effect is beautiful beyond words; a great sheet of sky frames The painting was completed just in time for the opening
the whole on both sides . . . thus, the very simplicity of the of the Exposition Universelle in May 1855. “The energetic and
contrast gives incomparable movement, variety, and unity to glowing painting” delighted Gautier and Baudelaire but put
the whole picture.”72 off a number of other critics, even young ones such as Paul

150 DELACROIX
Mantz: “The composition is hard to understand, and it is only This mutable quality, central to Romanticism, was associated
after long and intense effort that the eye, making order from with the assertion of the unique, creative self. Delacroix gave
disorder, finds its bearings in that confusion of entangled men much thought to the concept of originality and deliberated on
and animals. The drawing is slack, the forms rumpled like old it in his Journal, which he resumed in 1847. There he was able
fabric. The lines flare up and twist about; it is the spectacle of not only to take stock of the passage of time, which gave
force rather than force itself.”73 Maxime du Camp fumed perspective to the notion of the never-­before-­seen or reduced
about the painting, saying it “defies criticism. It is a vast logo- it to the latest fad, but also to look more critically, more
griph rendered in colors for which no words can be found. intently, and with greater experience than before at his own
It is a strange hodge-­podge. . . . almost raving mad; even the work and that of his predecessors, owing to his deeper knowl-
harmony is slipshod, because all the colors have similar edge of art history.
value.”74 Du Camp’s opinion was echoed by Pierre Petroz: The observations on originality that Delacroix recorded
“This strange jumble lacks M. Delacroix’s usual qualities while designing the ceiling for the Gallery of Apollo are
completely. . . . The color is very bright, but it flickers, and especially telling. The official confirmation of the commission
that chaos of reds, greens, yellows, and violets, all with the had come in early March 1850. From the start, Delacroix
same value, makes the Lion Hunt look like a tapestry.”75 These understood that working on a historical monument would
critiques were similar to the ones Delacroix had received in demand a level of respect and adaptation that could imperil
1827–28 for The Death of Sardanapalus, which was not included his artistic freedom, compromise his originality, and open him
in the retrospective of 1855 and which these young critics had to accusations of imitation. In the following months, as he
never seen.76 This time, however, the harshness was tempered worked on the project in earnest, he reflected on this matter.
by positive remarks about the painting’s decorative character.
The painting was damaged in a fire at the Musée des As I considered the composition for the ceiling . . . it
Beaux-­Arts, Bordeaux in 1870, resulting in the loss of the struck me that a good picture is like a good dish. It is
landscape with turquoise sky. (The missing portion of the made of exactly the same ingredients as a bad one—
work is visible in the second version, cat. 136, where there is the artist does everything! How many magnificent
more space between the figures.) This and other losses to the compositions would be worthless without a pinch of
perimeter of the canvas have heightened the impression of salt from the hand of the great cook? In Rubens, the
chaos and density, but they have also accentuated the effect of power of this, whatever it may be, is astounding. It is
material abundance that Delacroix sought to capture by juxta- incredible what his temperament, his vis poetica, can
posing lion’s fur with gold embroidery, and glinting swords add to a composition without seeming to change it.
with gleaming fangs and claws. He used the same method of Yet it is only a turn of his style. It is the way he does it
juxtaposition to invite a comparison between the musculature that matters; what he works on is comparatively unim-
of human arms and horses’ legs. Animality and humanity were portant. The new is very old. You might even say that
paired in a ferocious choreography. it is the oldest thing of all.77

A week later, commenting on writing and classical archi-

“The New Is Very Old”: Redefining Originality tecture, he added: “A great writer . . . takes expressions in
everyday use and, by giving them a special twist, changes them
The amazing ease with which Delacroix glided from one into something new. . . . When an architect of genius copies a
pictorial genre to another, immersing himself in the heteroge- great monument of antiquity he knows how to modify it so as
neous traditions of Rubens, Monnoyer, Veronese, Ribera, and to make it original. . . . Ordinary architects are only able to
the School of Fontainebleau, and moving from the register of make literal copies, with the result that they add to this humili-
austere pathos to that of decorative exuberance, may be dis- ating evidence of their own lack of ability, a failure even to
concerting. If his subjects were not new, and if his composi- imitate successfully.”78
tions were inspired by those of illustrious predecessors or In July 1850, while taking the waters at Bad Ems, in
taken from his own earlier work, wherein lies his originality? Germany, Delacroix read Thomas Medwin’s Conversations of

DRIVEN TO GREATNESS: 1833–54 151

Lord Byron with great interest. He lingered especially over the experienced that with the cartoon as well after drawing almost
passages concerning the accusations of borrowing and plagia- dumb, uninflected contours around the figures.”83
rism that were lodged against Byron. Happy to learn that one These reflections liberated Delacroix considerably in his
of his favorite authors was preoccupied with the same con- relation to the old masters. He had acquired enough confi-
cerns that were vexing him, Delacroix copied out his words: dence in his own artistic worth to regard their genius as suste-
nance for his further development rather than as an overbearing
I am taxed with being a plagiarist, when I am least or inhibiting influence. It was likely this sense of self-­validation
conscious of being one; but I am not very scrupulous, that underlies an allegorical drawing executed about 1849–51,
I own, when I have a good idea, how I came into The Triumph of Genius over Envy (cat. 117), which plumbs a
possession of it. . . . As to originality, Goethe has too theme that had preoccupied him since his early maturity. He
much sense to pretend that he is not under obligations therefore felt justified in taking up and interpreting his prede-
to authors, ancient and modern. . . . ‘How difficult it cessors’ subjects and compositions. He wrote with increasing
is,’ said he [Byron], ‘to say any thing new!’ . . . Perhaps freedom about them, establishing comparisons and bridges
all nature and art could not supply a new idea. . . . It is between artists from different eras and disciplines (musicians,
a bad thing to have too good a memory.79 painters, sculptors). He found virtue in certain of their “lapses,”
“imperfections,” “disproportions,” and “incompletions,”
Alongside his course of treatment, Delacroix visited Antwerp, factors that enhanced their charm, personality, the expressive-
Brussels, and Mechelen, experiences that revived his early ness and contrast of their works, and that “augmented the
enthusiasm for Rubens.80 He quickly overcame his emotion effect” of the whole. He caught himself feeling slightly bored
upon seeing the paintings and focused on analyzing the mas- by Mozart’s graceful perfection, for example, and took a
ter’s methods, especially his halftone technique. Looking growing interest in the powerful and provocative irregularity
carefully at The Raising of the Cross (1610–11; Cathedral of Our of Beethoven, whom he had previously found unappealing.84
Lady, Antwerp), which was being restored, he noted the Delacroix’s new preference for idiomatic pictorial lan-
precocious Antwerp master’s debt to Michelangelo: “He guage over “the priority of inventing certain ideas, certain
[Rubens] is still young and trying to please the pedants. Full striking effects,” led him to disdain punctilious imitators of
of Michelangelo. . . . [His mind] was imbued with sublime earlier styles, especially Ingres and his students Hippolyte
works; it cannot be said that he imitated. He had that side to Flandrin and Henri Lehmann, who had adopted the dry,
him, along with others. . . . It is clear that he did not imitate; linear manner of ancient Greek painting and the Italian and
he is always Rubens. All this will be useful for my ceiling Flemish Primitives.85
[Apollo Slays the Python].”81 Delacroix reassured himself by
comparing Rubens’s early style to that of his own youth, which Our Primitives, our Byzantines, who are so mulish
was also marked by Michelangelo’s powerful magnetism. “I had about style, their eyes always fixed on images from
that feeling when I began [my career?]. Perhaps I was indebted another time, take from them only their stiffness with-
to others, too, for it. Painters of each generation in turn have out adding qualities of their own. That mob of sad
been exalted and elevated by studying Michelangelo.”82 mediocrities is vast. . . . What can be found in those
When he returned from Belgium in mid-­August 1850, pictures of the true man who painted them?86
work began on positioning the composition on the ceiling.
Delacroix continued to consult paintings by Rubens and Raphael’s gestures are naïve in spite of the strangeness
Veronese in nearby galleries of the Louvre, but less as a subor- of his style. What is odious is when fools imitate his
dinate looking for artistic inspiration than as a colleague seek- strangeness, and are false in gesture and intention into
ing expert technical advice. “I noticed how straightforward the bargain. Ingres, who has never learned to compose
shadow and light are in P. Veronese’s Susanna [and the Elders], a subject as nature presents it, believes that he resem-
even in the foregrounds. In a vast composition like the ceiling, bles Raphael because he apes certain forms which are
that is all the more necessary. . . . The contours are also very characteristic of the master. These do actually give his
pronounced, a new way of being clear from a distance. I work a kind of grace, reminiscent of Raphael, but with

152 DELACROIX
 CAT. 117 The Triumph of Genius over Envy, ca. 1849–51

the latter you are very conscious that they come natu- and increasingly fluid manner. From tradition he borrowed
rally and are not deliberately cultivated.87 compositional structures and chromatic harmonies, the effec-
tiveness of which had been proved over generations. These
Painters who pursue that primitive dryness, a practice he adapted and translated into his own idiom, which
quite natural in schools still feeling their way and he undoubtedly esteemed to be of his time. His sources
drawing on almost backward sources, are like grown were not restricted to old master paintings. In the 1840s,
men who, in order to look ingenuous, would imitate Delacroix began to appropriate elements from certain of his
children’s speech and movements.88 own earlier works, and to modify and develop them further
in new ones.
Respect for the permanence of certain principles was
not to be confused with the imitation of obsolete pictorial
language. “True primitives are original talents. La Fontaine, “I Am the Penitent”: Reprises and Variations
who seems pure imitation, actually proceeds on the basis of
his own genius.”89 “You can speak only in your own tongue, Delacroix never stopped discovering new subjects and broad-
and also, only in the spirit of your own times. Those who hear ening his horizons.91 At the end of his life, he took an interest
you must be able to understand you, but above all, you must in chivalric romances, Ovid’s Metamorphoses, and stories from
understand yourself.”90 Delacroix’s own language distin- the Gospels that he had not already addressed in his work. At
guished his style from those of all others. Using a technique the same time that he was expanding his repertoire, he was
that involved the superposition, intermingling, and simultane- also returning to subjects he had treated previously. There are
ous contrast of colors, he applied oil paint in a free, vibrant, several reasons for this reengagement. It was impelled in part

DRIVEN TO GREATNESS: 1833–54 153

 by the tradition, observed by many artists, of repeating com-
positions that had found an appreciative audience—of satisfy-
ing the demands of the market. Painted replicas of Medea About
to Kill Her Children are a good example. Interest in Medea had
been revived by the distribution of a beautiful, large lithograph
by Emile Lassalle that was exhibited at the Salon of 1857.
Delacroix was asked to do three new painted versions of the
composition: the first, now destroyed, in 1859 for the art
dealer and collector Jean-­Hector Bouruet-­Aubertot; the second
in 1862 for the banker Emile Pereire, through the intermedi-
ary of Etienne François Haro; and the third the same year
for the Société des Amis des Arts, Arras, represented by
Constant Dutilleux.92
Reformulations of paintings could also result from the
gradual evolution of a favorite motif, which Delcroix would
FIG. 60 Young Woman Attacked by a Tiger (Indian Woman Bitten by a Tiger),
explore in various configurations simultaneously or in succes-
1856. Oil on canvas, 201/16 x 241/8 in. (51 x 61.3 cm). Staatsgalerie Stuttgart
(inv. 2695) (J 201) sion. Such was the case with the hunter on his mount attacked
by a great cat, a group that was perfected and multiplied until
it reached a first culmination in oil: the large Lion Hunt (see
cat. 135). The motif then evolved along a different course.
No longer were new protagonists added; rather, a more spa-
cious composition was created, along with a greater interplay
of receding planes.93 Parallel to these complex compositions,
where the hunters on horseback lead the choreography,
Delacroix worked on many scenes with two figures, in which
a great cat is shown tearing its prey—human or animal—to
pieces. Lion Devouring a Rabbit, Lion Devouring an Arab, and
Young Woman Attacked by a Tiger (also known as Indian Woman
Bitten by a Tiger, fig. 60) occupy cavernous landscapes filled
with disturbing clumps of spiny plants (agaves or bulrushes).94
The preliminary drawings for the tiger painting demonstrate
the decisive role of the formal interplay of two tangled,
undulating bodies, those of the feline and the young woman,
perhaps inspired by the dryads (salabhanjika) of ancient
Buddhist art.95
Another highly prized motif, that of the young woman
who has fallen prey to male violence in a dark, rocky setting,
was a topos of gothic romance and Romantic melodrama,
genres that profoundly shaped the visual imaginary of
Delacroix’s generation. The motif proved so durable that it
survived the literary genre that spawned it. Hence, the abduc-
tion of Rebecca by the Knight Templar outside the flaming
Castle of Front-­de-­Boeuf, first painted in 1846 (see cat. 105),
FIG. 61The Bride of Abydos, ca. 1852–53. Oil on canvas, 14 x 1013/16 in. was reprised in 1858 (see cat. 141), well after Delacroix had
(35.5 x 27.5 cm). Musée du Louvre, Paris (RF 1398) (J 311) lost his taste for Sir Walter Scott’s historical novels.

154 DELACROIX
 CAT. 139 The Bride of Abydos (Selim and Zuleika), 1857

After 1849, the year Delacroix completed the last of his the pose of the young woman, who crouches and looks away
paintings based on Byron’s epic poem The Giaour, Byron’s as she attempts with one hand to hold back her lover’s arm
poetry yielded up only one subject for the artist: that of the and with the other grips his shoulder, could easily be misinter-
doomed lovers portrayed in The Bride of Abydos. The scene, preted as a defensive one. However, close examination reveals
set outside a cave on the banks of the Hellespont, shows the that she is by no means Selim’s target. Rather, she is trying to
pirate Selim preparing to defend himself against the troops of dissuade the cornered warrior from engaging in a futile fight
Sultan Giaffir, sent to prevent him from running off with the against his assailants, who are barely discernible in the back-
sultan’s daughter. Delacroix painted two initial versions of the ground. There is reason to believe that Delacroix was aware of
episode: one about 1849 and another in 1852. He favored the ambiguity of the woman’s pose and intentionally fostered
the third rendering (fig. 61), which he reiterated with chro- it. In Desdemona Cursed by Her Father (fig. 62), a painting
matic variations in a fourth work made for his landlord, Jules exactly contemporaneous with the 1852 Bride of Abydos and
Hurel, in 1857 (cat. 139).96 In the 1852 version and its copy, with a nearly identical composition, he employed the same

DRIVEN TO GREATNESS: 1833–54 155

 Desdemona Cursed by Her Father, 1852. Oil on canvas, 231/4 x 195/16 in. (59 x 49 cm). Musée
FIG. 62
des Beaux-­Arts, Reims (inv. 907.19.89) (J 309)

motif to portray a young woman as victim: Desdemona, shown Delacroix was soon dissatisfied with producing this type of
kneeling before her onrushing father, raises her arms to his light fare for art lovers to enjoy in private; he also rejected the
chest as he lashes out at her in anger. idea of painting the female nude at the scale of history paint-
The development of a motif could thus exceed the ing, in the manner of Ingres’s Odalisque. He therefore moved
narrative confines of the original reference and circulate from away from the subject, preferring the ethnographic veracity of
one genre to another. Take, for instance, the topos of the Women of Algiers (see cat. 83). Nearly twenty years later, through
reclining female nude observed by a male onlooker. In his his memories of the Maghreb and his meditation on Rembrandt,
youth, Delacroix had used this motif in small erotic pictures Delacroix found his way back to the motif of the desirable
inspired by Pierre de Bourdeille Brantôme’s titillating reclining nude and enhanced it with a mysterious aura.
­memoirs and eighteenth-­century galante painting. A Lady and The small-­format odalisques undertaken at the end of
Her Valet (cat. 32), for example, features a seductively posed the 1840s (for example, fig. 63) lack the effrontery of the
woman feigning sleep while a servant she fancies looks on. courtesans of the 1820s. Their nudity is in soft focus and

156 DELACROIX
FIG. 63 Odalisque, ca. 1848–49. Oil on canvas, 97/16 x 125/8 in. (24 x 32 cm). Musée du Louvre,
Paris (RF 1658) (J 381)

CAT. 32 A Lady and Her Valet, ca. 1826–29

157
relatively reserved, their accessories are more prominent, that the painter finally saw the play performed in English.101
and shadows close in around them, creating a vague sense Although abridged, the production was the first in France to
of menace. The second version of Women of Algiers (see include the play’s most violent scenes, previously censored or
fig. 32) and Othello and Desdemona (see fig. 116) were painted skirted: the appearance of the ghost in the first act, Ophelia’s
at the same time and were exhibited together at the Salon of madness in the fourth, and the gravediggers scene in act 5.102
1849. By means of the works’ shared theatrical props (heavy That experience probably triggered the proliferation of
curtains, luxurious accessories) and mirror compositions Hamlets in Delacroix’s iconographic repertoire. Responding
(each has a standing figure on one side opposite a reclining to the play, the painter wrote: “The English have opened up
female figure on the other), Delacroix demonstrated how their theater. They are working wonders. . . . Our actors are
different genres can enrich each other. In Women of Algiers he learning from them; their eyes have been opened. The conse-
elevated a scene of manners to the rank of history painting not quences of this innovation are incalculable.”103 Critics, the
by means of format, as he had done in 1834, but through the intelligentsia, and Parisian high society seemed to agree with
dramatic expressiveness of light and shade; and in Othello and Delacroix; all gave the English Hamlet an enthusiastic recep-
Desdemona, a great tragic scene inspired by theater and opera, tion. The artist certainly saw the publication that was issued as
he conjured a hushed, mysterious atmosphere through mas- a memento of the production. Published under the title
tery of the decorative effects of textiles and goldwork.97 The Souvenirs du théâtre anglais à Paris, it comprised a series of
large red bed in A Lady and Her Valet (cat. 32), the contorted illustrations by Achille Devéria and Louis Boulanger that
pose in Odalisque (fig. 63), and the coarseness of the attendant conveyed the main lines of the set and poses struck by the
in Cleopatra and the Peasant (see cat. 95) are assembled and leading actors.104 Their costumes, which established the
transcended in this staging of Desdemona’s final moments. The standard that held for the next seventy years, were far more
art of the colorist and the theater director, along with the skill- precisely described.105 Delacroix, too, adhered to this stan-
ful interplay of resonating motifs, allowed Delacroix to break dard in his many representations of the protagonist, whose
down the traditional divide separating genre painters from all-­black attire changed very little over the decades: trunk
history painters, while avoiding the anecdotal. hose (puffy, thigh-­length breeches worn over long stockings),
Finally, the reprise of a theatrical subject could be wide-­sleeved cloak, cape worn over the shoulder, biretta with
induced not only by the expressive pleasure and formal free long plumes, and sword. The exception, found in the 1843
play associated with a motif, but also by developments in stage engraving showing Hamlet wearing Horatio’s light-­colored
productions that Delacroix attended and by his evolving view doublet, is also based on the 1827 production in Paris.
of a favorite character—Hamlet, most notably, whom he usu- The same spirit of competition (“what has been said has
ally portrayed with the skull of the jester Yorick, in the famous not yet been said enough”)106 that led Delacroix to measure
gravedigger scene. Delacroix probably saw a version of the himself against Moritz Retzsch in the Faust series may well have
play in Paris in his youth, with the actor François Joseph Talma spurred him to outdo Devéria and Boulanger’s mediocre illus-
playing the title character. Talma was a client of the young trations of Hamlet.107 In a lithograph of 1828 (see fig. 64),
painter, and Hamlet was Talma’s defining role from 1803 until he presented his personal interpretation of a scene that seems
his death in 1826. However, the version of the play he starred to have attracted him from the start, that in which Hamlet
in, a highly altered, expurgated adaptation by Jean François meditates on the skull of Yorick.108 Based on a watercolor
Ducis, bore little resemblance to the original.98 Delacroix was study, the print shows the three characters—Hamlet, Horatio,
staying with his brother in Touraine in August–September 1822, and one of the gravediggers—stylized to the point of caricature
when Samson Penley’s troupe presented the first English-­ in a landscape far more ambitious than that of Devéria and
language production of Hamlet in Paris.99 During the painter’s Boulanger. The augmented setting permitted Delacroix to
visit to London three years later, he regretted not having the unite in a single image two successive scenes from the play:
opportunity to see Edmund Kean’s famous performance as Hamlet’s meditation on Yorick’s skull and the departure of
Hamlet at the Drury Lane Theater.100 It was not until September Ophelia’s funeral cortege from Elsinore Castle. In the fantasti-
1827, when Charles Kemble, manager of the Covent Garden cal and grotesque spirit of Faust, Delacroix juxtaposed the
Theater, brought Hamlet to the Théâtre de l’Odéon in Paris, gravedigger’s physical deformity with the lugubrious and

158 DELACROIX
CAT. 86 Hamlet and Horatio in the Graveyard, 1835

159
somewhat frightening procession of hooded figures adapted scrambled the codes of specific genres. Delacroix, eschewing
from the witches’ sabbath scene in Faust. The lithograph was literary illustration and the theatricality of history painting,
an isolated effort. There is no way of knowing what prompted created an ambiguous work, one that is simultaneously a
Delacroix to publish six years later, at his own expense, and landscape painting, a vanitas, and a posthumous portrait.
independent of any text, a suite of lithographs based on Hamlet. That was probably the reason why the canvas was
Was he inspired by the new edition of Le Tourneur’s transla- rejected by the jury for the Salon of 1836 and, consequently,
tion, published by Henri Horace Meyer the same year?109 heralded as a Romantic manifesto by proponents of artistic
He executed six scenes in 1834 and 1835, omitting the freedom. Shortly after the Salon opened, the painting was
gravediggers episode, which he reserved for an oil painting purchased by Achille Ricourt, director of the review L’artiste,
done for the Salon of 1835 (cat. 86). This was the first work who used it as the rallying point for a media campaign directed
with a Shakespearean motif that Delaroix produced with the against what was judged to be the tyrannical interference of
Salon in view, and it was also the one that diverged the most the Académie in the workings of the Salon and the jury’s
from the text. Did he intend it to announce the publication decision. In addition to many articles in defense of the paint-
of the lithographs? Should the painting be understood as a ing by Gustave Planche, Alfred de Musset, Alexandre-Gabriel
kind of frontispiece? The scene depicted does not correspond Decamps, Roger de Beauvoir, and others, the review published
to any moment in the play: though it is set in the churchyard, a lithograph of it followed by an homage in poetry by Louise
the gravediggers are absent. Hamlet, wearing neither plumed Colet.112 A wood engraving accompanied by a laudatory article
hat nor sword—the distinguishing attributes of a gentleman— was published the following year in Le magasin pittoresque.113
is seated with one foot in the grave. Backlit by a hot, late-­ Encouraged by these demonstrations of support but
afternoon sky, Horatio waits, impassive, lost in his own thoughts. eager to reach a compromise with the jury so that his favorite
The landscape, a vast, deserted wasteland enclosed by white- Shakespearean subject could be exhibited at the Salon,
washed walls, might have been inspired by the artist’s memories Delacroix executed a new oil painting for the Salon of 1839,
of Moroccan graveyards or of the old cemetery in Toulon, simultaneous with a Death of Ophelia.114 He reformulated the
abandoned in 1829, which Delacroix described to his friend gravedigger scene, this time hewing close to the text and the
Jean-­Baptiste Pierret when he returned from Morocco.110 theatrical context (cat. 96). The composition is far more narra-
The familiar scene of animated dialogue is replaced here tive than the preceding one: the cynical gravediggers reap-
by a majestic, static, silent tableau. Each character has with- pear, their animation and plebeian directness contrasting with
drawn into himself. Whereas a preliminary drawing shows the the patrician reserve of the two gentlemen. Hamlet, his deli-
two friends together, their faces lowered in communion as cate white hand and gold ring highlighted against the deep
they contemplate Yorick’s skull, in the finished painting they black of his cloak, possesses the sober elegance of Titian’s
are separated, with faces raised.111 Each looks straight ahead, Man with a Glove (ca. 1520; Musée du Louvre). He reacts with
absorbed in his own thoughts; the communication is broken. a movement of revulsion to the skull brandished by one of the
The representation of Hamlet follows the codes of posthumous laborers. The characters are tightly framed, their attention
portraiture seen in Delacroix’s portrait of Rabelais (Musée de concentrated on the skull, the focal point of the composition.
Chinon), completed the previous year. The prince is ren- The painting was accepted by the Salon jury in February 1839
dered full-­length, with a gravestone for his throne, the court and honored by the crown prince, who bought it.
jester’s skull as his celestial globe, and an abandoned grave- That critical success was immediately followed by the
yard as his kingdom. Lacking crown and scepter, he seems to publication of at least three different prints in illustrated
be submitting to the sham of a sardonic royal portrait. The magazines.115 It wasn’t until four years later, however, in 1843,
wobbly gravestone and foot disappearing into the muddy hole that Delacroix finally executed his own lithograph of the
convey better than any struck pose the complexity of the scene, completing the suite he had initiated in 1834.116 The
character, whose indecisiveness and simulated buffoonery composition of the print reverses that of the 1839 painting
mask his profound disgust with the vanity of the world and his with only slight variation (fig. 65). Delacroix added prominent
thoughts of suicide. This effigy of Hamlet as the prince of narrative details (the gravedigger’s pickax, the churchyard
darkness, on the edge of the abyss of buried illusions, cross, Elsinore Castle) and accentuated the hierarchy within

160 DELACROIX
CAT. 96 Hamlet and Horatio in the Graveyard, 1839

161
FIG. 64 Hamlet Contemplating Yorick’s Skull, 1828. Lithograph with chine collé, third state of FIG. 65Hamlet and Horatio with the Gravediggers, 1843.
three, image 119/16 x 147/8 in. (29.3 x 37.8 cm), sheet 165/8 x 191/2 in. (42.2 x 49.5 cm). The Lithograph, second state of four, image 111/4 x 81/4 in.
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, The Elisha Whittelsley Collection, The Elisha (28.5 x 21 cm), sheet 121/2 x 95/16 in. (31.8 x 23.7 cm).
Wittelsley Fund, 2018 (2018.79) (D-­S 75) The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Rogers
Fund, 1922 (22.56.16) (D-­S 116)

the chiasma linking the two secondary characters (the grave- on the coloration of the human figures or any other compo-
digger viewed from the back and a smaller Horatio) to the two nents of the foreground: seen in contre-­jour, they should
principal characters. The gravedigger holding the skull has logically be very dark. This inconsistency must be responsible
been moved closer to Hamlet, who, larger than Horatio and for the impression of preciosity and naïveté, which displeased
with his weight on his right leg, appears more assertive. the critics at the Salon of 1859. The transfer of the beard from
It would be natural to imagine that, having used the same Horatio’s face to Hamlet’s can be explained by the refashion-
formal solution in both the painting and the lithograph, ing of the character of Hamlet on the French stage in 1846–
Delacroix would feel no need to treat the gravedigger scene 47. The actor Philibert Rouvière played the lead role in a new
again. Nonetheless, in 1859 he returned to it, one last time in version of the play that was adapted and translated by Alexandre
oil, in a manner that exemplifies his late creative process Dumas and Paul Meurice. Baudelaire commented admiringly
(fig. 66). In scrupulously replicating the composition of the on the impassioned, tempestuous acting of Rouvière, who was
lithograph of 1828, he returned to his original approach to the immortalized in the role in a portrait by Edouard Manet
subject. He faithfully transposed all the elements present in (1866; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.).117
the lithograph while enhancing it with new narrative ele- An important aspect of the 1859 painting that has been
ments: a liquor bottle planted in the overturned earth in the little discussed is its reversal of two traditional practices.
foreground, the second gravedigger in the middle ground, Typically, the painted rendering of a composition precedes
Ophelia’s coffin and torches for the funeral procession. The the print version, which functions to disseminate the original
blazing sky, a reminder of the 1835 painting (see cat. 86), image. The genesis of this Hamlet and Horatio can therefore be
bathes the scene in a glowing, unreal light that has no effect interpreted as a reversal of the traditional relationship of

162 DELACROIX
 Hamlet and Horatio in the Graveyard, 1859. Oil on canvas, 117/16 x 143/16 in. (29 x 36 cm). Musée du
FIG. 66
Louvre, Paris (RF 1399) (J 332)

anteriority and artistic hierarchy—the precedence of lithogra- theatrical metamorphosis Hamlet had undergone, as Kemble’s
phy over painting. Moreover, the dimensions of the painting character was replaced by Rouvière’s, nor the evolution in his
are close to those of the lithograph, but the composition is own style, which had become more fluid and vibrant, less
reversed. As a rule, a reversal occurs when a painting is trans- precise and firm than in his youth. He was fully aware of this
lated into a lithograph or other type of print, not when a print stylistic change: “Every original talent goes through the same
is used as the source of a painting. Perhaps Delacroix based stages in its development that art does in its various evolu-
the painting not on a print but on the original lithographic tions, namely, timidity and dryness at the beginning, and
stone. Whether or not this was the case, the painting seems to breadth or carelessness of details at the end (Count de
reverse the flow of time. It is as if Delacroix re-created in 1859 Palatiano in comparison with my recent paintings). . . . That is
a painted original that could have served as the model for the how the talent of a single man, as he develops, passes through
1828 lithograph.118 the different phases in the history of the art he practices.”120
Delacroix thus ventured to step into the shoes of the The complex, reflexive strategy of moving back and forth
artist he had been thirty years earlier. He recalled the galvaniz- in time that Delacroix employed in his late work—notably
ing experience of the production at the Odéon in 1827, of applying it to the most famous memento mori dialogue in
which he had recently been reminded: “[Caught up with] my European literature—is similar to the one played out in his
old friend [Achille] Ricourt. . . . He spoke of what I used to Journal during the same period. It reveals the interest the
be in those far-­off days. He remembered the green coat, my painter had in maintaining a connection between goings-on in
long hair, my passion for Shakespeare, novelties, etc.”119 Even the world of art and his own creative practice during the final
so, in his painting of 1859, Delacroix concealed neither the decade of his life.

DRIVEN TO GREATNESS: 1833–54 163

 From the Last of the Romantics to the Genius of Color: 1855–63

To be bold when doing so might compromise

your past is the greatest sign of strength.
—Delacroix’s Journal, March 1, 18591

The years 1853–63, the decade immediately preceding extended far beyond that horizon. He had outdistanced a
Delacroix’s death, allowed the painter to reap the benefits of number of fellow artists of the so-­called Romantic generation
his career and overcome remaining obstacles. After his who in the 1820s might have given the impression that they
extended battle with the Académie des Beaux-­Arts, he finally could compete with him. In addition to those who had died
won official artistic recognition. In addition to continuing to young and been forgotten (Richard Parkes Bonington, Xavier
receive public commissions, he enjoyed the honor of a solo Sigalon), some confessed early on that they had run out of
retrospective exhibition in 1855 and was elected to the Institut originality (Eugène Devéria, Alexandre Colin, Charles-Emile
de France in 1857. These two major events placed him on Callande de Champmartin), while others such as Vernet, Paul
nearly equal footing with contemporaries already canonized Delaroche, and Léon Cogniet found success along more
early on by the academic system, namely Jean Auguste commercial lines. In the early 1830s, these three artists gave up
Dominique Ingres and Horace Vernet. trying to confront the problems raised by the materiality of
The various critical circles came to recognize that painting, opting for a form of imagery adapted to mass produc-
Delacroix had accomplished the rare feat of always remaining tion and ideologies then in fashion.
at the forefront of the Paris art scene. The first histories of During the same period, by contrast, Delacroix chose to
nineteenth-­century French painting were now being written, revive a form of painting that could not be easily transported
and Delacroix was the subject of a number of studies, essays, or reproduced. He dedicated himself to monumental and
and magazine articles. He captivated the younger generation allegorical decorative paintings in the tradition of the old
of art critics, museum curators, and the officials of the fine arts: masters, granting only a subordinate role to the Salons, even at
Louis Clément de Ris, Philippe de Chennevières, Charles the risk of weakening the bond he had established with the
Baudelaire, Paul Mantz, Théophile Silvestre, Paul de Saint-­ public early on and of being excluded from the artistic battles
Victor, Philippe Burty, Zacharie Astruc, and Ernest Chesneau. of his time. Attempts continued, however, to place him in the
They saw that Delacroix, owing to the enlightened support of fray, if only artificially. During the 1840s members of the
successive governments from the Restoration to the Second press, disoriented by the growing diversification of painting
Empire, had circumvented the persistent hostility of the trends, tried to reenvision the art scene, no longer as a pyramid
Académie while preserving his independence, refusing to (since the French school was no longer one and indivisible),
submit to the propaganda of the time. but as a field of opposing forces. They supported this view by
Delacroix was a fascinating case, but also a rather diffi- positing a powerful “classical” pole, represented with relative
cult one. The oeuvre he produced, though enormous and ease (though against type) by Ingres and his accomplices,
immediately recognizable, did not give rise to a movement whom they deemed to be dogmatic. Delacroix, situated on the
taken up by a community of young artists. The critics struggled other side of the “golden mean” embodied by the Vernet-­
to name the artistic phenomenon he embodied. The adjective Delaroche dynasty, represented the other extreme and most
“Romantic” was no longer apropos: Romanticism had gradu- valid alternative.
ally come to be perceived as a historical movement of youth- That paradigm crystallized at an exhibition—a retrospec-
ful rebellion associated with 1830, the year of political and tive of French painting from the 1770s to 1845—organized by
theatrical revolution. Yet Delacroix’s career and his art now Baron Taylor in 1846 at the Bazar Bonne-­Nouvelle in Paris.

164 DELACROIX
FIG. 67Peace Descends to Earth,
sketch, 1852. Oil on canvas,
diam. 309/16 in. (77.7 cm).
Petit Palais–Musée des Beaux-­
Arts de la Ville de Paris
(inv. PPP04622) (J 579)

The critics took the opportunity to fabricate an artificial gene- In the early 1850s, most critics had to fall back on the
alogy leading from David to Ingres2 in opposition to the age-­old opposition between the proponents of drawing
Other, Delacroix, who was that much easier to stereotype (called idealists or stylists) and the so-­called colorists, repre-
because he was not represented in the exhibition. The press sented, respectively, by Ingres and Delacroix, except that
looked for the appropriate term to define him. Because Ingres could still pass for a leader, whereas Delacroix appeared
“Romantic” was now ambiguous and, it was suspected, out- more like a solitary and indomitable figure of genius. Delacroix’s
dated, Baudelaire invented a tautology. Sometimes he used singularity would now be systematically attributed to his
the vague but powerful expression “leader of the present-­day ingenuity in the expressive use of color and his talent for large
school” or “leader of the modern school.” At other times he decorative paintings, gifts that Paul Signac erected into a myth
dehistoricized Romanticism, redefining it in terms of what at the end of the century. Decoration was ripe for apotheosis.4
Delacroix had become in the meantime: “Romanticism, to be
precise, lies neither in the choice of subjects nor in the exact
truth, but in the manner of feeling.” Ultimately, Baudelaire 1855: The Trap of Apotheosis
merged the two definitions: “For me, Romanticism is the most
recent, the most up-­to-­date expression of the beautiful.”3 The first act played out in spring 1854 at the unveiling of the
Three years later, however, with the sudden rise of the austere decorations that Delacroix had painted in the Salon de la
realism of Gustave Courbet and the painters of the Barbizon Paix (fig. 67) of the Hôtel de Ville in Paris.5 They were only
school, Delacroix’s “modernity” became difficult to define a few feet from the Salon de l’Empereur, the ceiling decora-
and defend. tions of which the municipality had entrusted to Ingres.

THE GENIUS OF COLOR: 1855–63 165

Clément de Ris, Théophile Gautier, and Gustave Planche other European powers (primarily the artistic hubs of London,
took note of this new evidence of Delacroix’s mastery of Munich, Düsseldorf, and Milan). The government wished to
the demanding genre of large allegorical and mythological federate French artists and transform internal quarrels into
ceiling compositions: “M. Delacroix is one of the most inven- a mark of national wealth, creative vitality, and good taste.
tive artists of our time; as such, he occupies a significant With the Exposition, which was to take place in Paris from
place in the French school. . . . Decorative painting suits him May 15 to October 31, 1855, the emperor wished not only to
marvelously, it is truly where he reigns as master. It seems that showcase French excellence in the face of British competition
his palette becomes richer as the space in front of him grows but also to assemble great national artistic points of pride of
larger. He likes to handle large shapes, to mold them. . . . the past several decades. Delacroix was invited in December
The duty of criticism is to encourage him on that path.”6 1853 to sit on the Exposition’s fine arts commission. He was
Falling in with that chorus of praise was Etienne Jean among the most privileged of artists, invited to display a selec-
Delécluze, a traditionally harsh critic, uncompromising when tion of masterpieces representative of his career. On March
it came to less than proficient drawing. At seventy-­three, he 20, 1854, the state also commissioned a large composition on
still presided over the art criticism of the Journal des débats. a subject of his choosing to be shown at the Exposition.
Appreciating the grace, charm, and distinction of a piece Delacroix chose the theme of the lion hunt (see cats. 134–36).
that took its place respectfully within the architectural setting, For more than a year, he had devoted considerable energy to
Delécluze abandoned his usual reprimands: “This painter finishing the decorations in the Salon de la Paix (completed
has the particular merit of loving and understanding color in March 1854) and to painting new compositions for the
and of turning it to good account, because what he repro- Exposition. All the while, he expanded his research and made
duces of the form is expressed neither by the stroke nor by requests for loans and restorations, with the aim of presenting,
the modeling but by the color. . . . It is a painted piece of not only to the public and the authorities, but also to the
music in which no striking melody can be discerned but members of the Institut de France, a significant body of work
which pleases the eye through a sequence of chords as artful spanning thirty-­three years.
as they are graceful.”7 He succeeded in this aim, displaying an extraordinary
Planche declared a tie: “All men of real value seek a set of paintings of the greatest importance, primarily large-­
model and assistance from the tradition. In that respect, MM. format paintings that had been shown at the Salons between
Ingres and Delacroix are of the same opinion. . . . If they part 1822 and 1848. Their Salon titles were: Dante and Virgil (Salon
ways when it comes to invention, it is not for us to complain, of 1822); Scenes of the Massacres at Chios (Salon of 1824); Christ
since they offer for our admiration two faces of art, which in the Garden of Olives, The Execution of the Doge Marino Faliero,
combine to create supreme beauty, the severity of line, and and The Emperor Justinian (Salon of 1827–28); Battle of Poitiers
the spark of fantasy.”8 The next year, Charles Perrier con- (1830); Liberty Leading the People, Boissy d’Anglas, and The
curred: “Variety is the sign of richness, just as union is the sign Murder of the Bishop of Liège (Salon of 1831); The Battle of Nancy
of strength, and no other country in the world can lay claim to and Women of Algiers (Salon of 1834); The Battle of the Giaour
a glory composed of so many heterogeneous and national and the Pasha and The Prisoner of Chillon (Salon of 1835);
elements. The people of this country know how to honor the Medea About to Kill Her Children and Convulsionists of Tangier
Victor Hugos as they honored the Corneilles, and worship (Salon of 1838); Hamlet and Horatio (Salon of 1839); The
without distinction M. Delacroix and M. Ingres.”9 Justice of Trajan (Salon of 1840); Entry of the Crusaders in
This atmosphere of communion for the greater glory of Constantinople, The Shipwreck of Don Juan, and Jewish Wedding
French art did not occur by chance. The inaugural festivities in Morocco (Salon of 1841); Mary Magdalene in the Desert,
for the new decorations at the Hôtel de Ville in the spring of Cumaean Sibyl, and Last Words of Marcus Aurelius (Salon of
1854 were in fact the prelude to the Exposition Universelle 1845); The Farewell of Romeo and Juliet (Salon of 1846); Christ
of 1855, a grand display that the government had been plan- on the Cross (1847); Christ at the Tomb and The Death of Valentin
ning since late 1853. The Great Exhibition of 1851 in London (Salon of 1848); Basket of Flowers and Fruit (Salon of 1849);
had caused the regime of Napoleon III to realize that France’s and a Romeo and Juliet, a Tasso in Prison, and the head of
artistic influence was now competing directly with that of an old woman. Three new works were added: Arab Family,

166 DELACROIX
The Two Foscari, and Lion Hunt. The public rediscovered The Disaster of the Salon of 1859:
Liberty Leading the People, unseen for two decades, but could “The Critics in Mourning”
not view The Death of Sardanapalus.
Barely a year after the unveiling of the decorations at the It was with some surprise that the public saw the new member
Hôtel de Ville, the immensity of Delacroix’s achievement and of the Institut de France, aged sixty-­one, return to the arena of
the diversity of his talent were on full view; the critics were the Salon of 1859. The act of exhibiting after four years of
flabbergasted. Baudelaire aptly summed up the impression: absence, when such high honors had been bestowed on him,
“The proof is given, the question is forever settled, the result was in itself astonishing. Everyone was willing to forgive
is there, visible, enormous, flamboyant. . . . M. Delacroix has painters who had reached the pinnacle of their careers if they
treated every genre; his imagination and knowledge have did not feel the need or desire to lay themselves open at the
covered every corner of the pictorial landscape. He has Salon, the site of cabals, mockery, and overstatement. Ingres
made . . . charming little paintings, full of i­ntimacy and pro- and Delaroche had spared themselves the ordeal since the
fundity; he has decorated the walls of our palaces, has filled mid-­1830s. Even in 1857, the critic Clément de Ris had com-
our museums with vast compositions.”10 Gautier similarly mended Delacroix’s eagerness to face the line of fire at the
observed: “The Exposition Universelle of 1855 has elevated Salon: “This is the highest praise that can be given him. . . .
M. E. Delacroix to great heights. . . . The education of the The artist never backed away from publicity. Every Salon
masses comes about gradually, and admiration gives way to found him at the ready, responding to the attacks with new
sarcasm. Paradox becomes axiomatic: it is now a commonplace works, defending his flag with unshakable assurance, taking up
to praise M. Ingres and M. Delacroix.”11 the battle anew in all its forms, returning blow for blow,
After the Exposition, on November 15, Delacroix always hounded, never diminished, finally forcing his adver-
received a fifth-­place grand medal of honor12 and was pro- saries to admire his steadfastness if not his talent.”13
moted to commander of the Legion of Honor. He thereby Delacroix wished to bear witness to his restored vitality
attained the same level of distinction that his father, Charles by exhibiting eight paintings in his favorite genres, both reli-
François Delacroix, and his elder brother, Charles Henry, had gious (The Ascent to Calvary, Saint Sebastian, Christ Descended
reached before him. Despite his fatigue, he was encouraged into the Tomb) and literary. For the literary subjects, he had
to present himself, for the eighth time, as a candidate for the taken care to combine Baroque and Romantic references he
Académie des Beaux-­Arts, to fill the chair of Delaroche, who had been fond of since his youth (Shakespeare and Sir Walter
had died on November 4, 1856. Delacroix was elected on Scott) with classical references to ancient Roman history and
January 10, 1857, but he was denied the opportunity to teach sixteenth-­century chivalric romances (fig. 68).
at the Ecole des Beaux-­Arts. As a result, what energy he still The result was disastrous. The critics, profoundly disap-
had was devoted primarily to moving to the studio he had pointed and cheerless, felt that they were dealing with an old
built on rue de Furstenberg. He settled in at the end of 1857 and worn-­out painter. They saluted a genius who had reached
to work on the decoration for the Chapel of the Holy Angels his twilight years. Mantz, though a fervent supporter, opened
at the nearby church of Saint-­Sulpice (completed in late July his article with a funeral oration:
1861) and to compile his Dictionary of the Fine Arts, through
which he hoped to transmit ideas that the academic system M. Delacroix returns to us today, visibly tired but still
had not sanctioned. valiant, uneven in his efforts but recognizable from afar
These circumstances might suggest that Delacroix’s by his brilliant touches and elegant grandeur. Should
position was altogether assured, that his dominant place his recent works betray a certain lassitude (and that is in
in the pantheon of French painting had become unassailable. fact our belief ), no one ought to be very surprised. . . .
And yet, a few years later, Delacroix risked a return to the M. Delacroix has been at the ready since 1822. His
Salon with paintings that blurred the lines between past and oeuvre is infinite, enormous. . . . No one more than he
present, repetition and originality. He was met with incom- would be entitled to take a rest. And if ever his failing
prehension and endured the bitter experience of having hand were to betray his ideas, no one would be more
outlived himself. deserving of the consolation of the critics in mourning.

THE GENIUS OF COLOR: 1855–63 167

 FIG. 68 Erminia and the Shepherds (from Torquato
Tasso’s Gerusalemme Liberata), 1859. Oil on canvas,
325/16 x 411/8 in. (82 x 104.5 cm). Nationalmuseum,
Stockholm (inv. NM 2246) (J 331)

He ended on a note of sad reverence: “We owed that loyal Small paintings do not suit Eugène Delacroix’s talent.
scrutiny to the glorious master, the skillful harmonist, the It is subjected to microscopic analysis: his good qualities
inexhaustible inventor. . . . Alas! A fateful law weighs heavy on are cramped and his flaws fantastically magnified. His
genius, as it does on beauty. . . . Admirers become fewer and dramatic and uneven drawing needs to spread out over
lovers depart.”14 Mantz was echoed by Saint-­Victor for La the vast field of a wall or canvas. Restricted to a small
presse: “It hurts us to have to fault, for the first time, the illus­ space, it often becomes unintelligible. . . . [The human
trious master who for thirty years has been the leader of the figures,] hindered in their movements, impeded in
modern school.”15 Jean Rousseau followed suit. His review, their growth, break into pieces, writhe, miss the mark,
“What Remains of Delacroix,” began as follows: “Here is a and come to embody a delirious inaccuracy.18
painful sight. We are at the bedside of a genius approaching
the end. . . . The time will soon come, if Delacroix does not Charles Perrier commented: “M. Delacroix’s small paint-
recover, when all his exertions will be directed at pairing one ings are absolutely unintelligible, unless they are viewed with
tone with another, and without concern for representing the large ones in mind.”19 Further, the reprises of his previous
something—and at making bouquets where no flowers can be compositions raised doubts about his capacity to innovate, since
found.”16 Maxime du Camp went so far as to reproach the the proposed variants were held to be unconvincing. Mantz, for
artist for sabotaging his own apotheosis by becoming senile: example, despised Hamlet and Horatio in the Graveyard (fig. 66),
“So has death struck M. Eugène Delacroix as well? By that I “a painting mediocre in its significance, a second crop of hay
mean the anticipatory death that paralyzes the hand, closes the hastily mown in a field that once produced splendid harvests.”20
eyes, and steals from the mind the notion of the right and Saint-­Victor considered Abduction of Rebecca (see cat. 141)
true. What are these paintings done by a ghost and exhibited merely an “unfortunate repetition of a subject already treated.”21
under his name? . . . In the interest of his reputation, may he He suspected Delacroix of giving in to a facile mannerism:
never come out of retirement again.”17
It was now believed that the artist was putting his talent It is that deliberate inaccuracy that I have been sorry to
to the wrong use. Saint-Victor remarked: find for some time in Eugène Delacroix’s small

168 DELACROIX
 canvases; he repeats his Barbary types, his wild anato- gratuitously undermine a glory acquired at such great
mies, his enormous flaws in physique. In these small cost? Why enter the arena looking rumpled, when you
dimensions, painting becomes for him a kind of hiero- can appear in a strong and splendid suit of armor?26
glyphic writing that eliminates the real rendering of
objects, in favor of a rapid and cursory abbreviation of Delacroix was celebrated for his past works, but his
them. . . . The repetition [of these canvases] alerts me present offerings were an occasion for surprise and confusion.
to the fact that they express a habitual procedure and Discernible in these reviews is a great deal of reticence, even
not the first burst of ideas or a precipitous verve.22 guilt, at being obliged to criticize a master despite the respect
due him. With the exception of Alexandre Dumas,
The more elaborate paintings were disconcerting because of Baudelaire, and Astruc, whose enthusiasm remained intact,
the limp forms, the neglect of proportions, the implausibility the consternation was evident even among the younger art
of the space, the illogical placement of the human figures and critics who had emerged in the Revue des deux mondes, L’artiste,
the resulting absence of hierarchy, as well as a certain affecta- or the new Gazette des beaux-­arts. And yet their tastes had been
tion of gestures similar to the “sentiment and manner of the formed by Delacroix, and they had made their mark defend-
French decadent painters of the eighteenth century.”23 Not ing him. To be polite yet without conviction, they attributed
even the use of color, the artist’s ultimate claim to fame, what they interpreted as “weakness” or “lassitude” to the
escaped this chorus of lament: “At least in the past, the color artist’s age. Their disappointment was especially strong
set ablaze that dross of forms; it captured them in a delightful because the Salon of 1859 sounded the death knell of religious
impression of splendor or transparency. But for some time, and history painting at large, done in by the mixing of genres
the master seems to have snuffed out his sun. His figures, and the overwhelming dominance of landscape painting and
woven from reddish strands, begin to fray in a dull and muted genre scenes. In the absence of Ingres (who no longer exhib-
setting. It remains harmonious, but at the expense of light. . . . ited his works) and Delaroche and Théodore Chassériau
Erminia and the Shepherds looks like a fading tapestry.”24 Le (both of whom had died in 1856), these critics were counting
figaro echoed these words: “The eight scenes are all immersed a great deal on Delacroix, the “last great painter,”27 to display
in the same grayish tone. The eight scenes appear under the the dynamism of a highly imaginative mode of painting and to
same overcast skies, at the same undefinable hour, which is give the younger generations the courage to undertake grandes
neither the hour of dawn nor that of twilight. Delacroix machines.28 The master, isolated by the depletion of his imagi-
snuffed out the sun that gave his previous color such caustic nary repertoire, did not seem to understand the scope of
touches and such varied effects.”25 the mission he had taken on. Hopes were dashed. The same
Only four years after the triumph at the Exposition impression can be found among such younger artists as
Universelle of 1855, the gap between Delacroix and his Claude Monet, who told Eugène Boudin of his visit to the
public had reopened. Saint-­Victor aptly summed up Salon: “[the artist] has painted better works than those he is
the situation: showing this year. They are only indications, ébauches; but as
always, he has verve, he has movement.”29
The Exposition of 1855, in displaying his oeuvre in all The most prudent still hoped that the misunderstanding
its breadth, elevated Eugène Delacroix to great heights. would dissipate in time. Chesneau, rejecting both sarcastic
The ridicule was silenced, the protests ended, the laments and blind accolades, admitted he was at a loss: “I know
crowd itself felt the grandeur and range of that oeuvre it seems inappropriate for a critic to be perplexed, much less
without being able to measure it. May the master no admit to his perplexity; however, out of penitence for my
longer risk his hard-­won prize, may he have respect for many acts of summary and sometimes harsh judgment, I want
his genius and the dignity of his rank. He can only to impose upon myself the humiliation of acknowledging that,
compromise himself in exhibiting these insignificant, for the moment, I am incapable of delivering a just verdict
weak pieces, which disfigure him in the public’s eyes. with regard to M. Delacroix. . . . If one day I broach publicly
The diatribes are beginning again, negativity is resur- this sphinx of modern painting, it will be because that day I
facing, jealousies are reawakening. . . . Why will have wrung his secret from him.”30

THE GENIUS OF COLOR: 1855–63 169

 CAT. 118 Jacob Struggling with the Angel, 1850 CAT. 119 Jacob Wrestling with the Angel, 1850

Delacroix was not the leader of the French school, The disaster of 1859 was quickly forgotten. Delacroix’s
which was now atomized, or of the Romantics, many of whom participation at the exhibition of modern artists at the Galerie
were now deceased. Neither was he the charismatic leader of Francis Petit in the spring of 186031 took on the appearance of
a colorist movement, which lacked both substance and disci- a retrospective, combining works as old as The Murder of the
ples. He belonged to no group. By his autonomy and his Bishop of Liège (see cat. 64) with the latest works on the motif
carefully staged solitude, he gave the impression of wishing to of Christ Asleep during the Tempest (see cat. 129). Owing to
cultivate the myth of genius, of being unclassifiable and above the lyricism of the landscape and eminently Romantic charac-
the fray. Along the way, he seemed to have lost his connection ter of the subject (a boat in a storm), these compositions
to the public entirely, not only the masses but also the best-­ reassured journalists, who found that they conformed to the
informed and most tolerant critics. expectations the name Delacroix raised. The critical reception

170 DELACROIX
CAT. 120 Jacob Wrestling with the Angel, 1850

THE GENIUS OF COLOR: 1855–63 171

FIG. 69 Jacob Wrestling with the Angel, 1859–61. Oil and wax on plaster, FIG. 70 Heliodorus Driven from the Temple, 1859–61. Oil and wax on plaster,
24 ft. 711/16 in. x 15 ft. 1015/16 in. (7.5 x 4.8 m). Chapel of the Holy Angels, 24 ft. 711/16 in. x 15 ft. 1015/16 in. (7.5 x 4.8 m). Chapel of the Holy Angels,
church of Saint-­Sulpice, Paris (J 602) church of Saint-­Sulpice, Paris (J 601)

was equally favorable upon the unveiling of the sumptuous 1830s and 1840s the painter had sought to redefine the notion
Chapel of the Holy Angels at Saint-­Sulpice in 1861 (cats. 118– of originality and to argue the need for innovation, particu-
20; figs. 69, 70), which reconfirmed Delacroix’s ability to larly to fend off the dangers of routine and the passage of
bring distinction to the genre of large decorative painting. time. This preoccupation resurfaced in his Journal just two
Following the artist’s death two years later, the sale of the months before the opening of the Salon of 1859, with a reflec-
contents of his studio was an extraordinary success, and many tion on the idea of “boldness” in art, associated from the start
tributes followed. with the problem of old age:
The riddle of the Salon of 1859 was thus overshadowed
but not solved. The doubt that had taken hold of well-­informed This is what makes all the more surprising the boldness
visitors demands consideration. As we have seen, since the displayed by the illustrious masters at an advanced

172 DELACROIX
 stage in their careers. To be bold when doing so The Art of Indecision?
might compromise your past is the greatest sign of
strength. . . . In the arts particularly, it takes a very The chagrin produced by Delacroix’s later compositions had
profound sentiment to maintain the originality of your to do primarily with the sense that their dramatic tension had
thought, in spite of the habits to which even talent dissipated, that their force had been dispersed and their forms
inevitably falls prey. The artist, having spent a large dissolved. That impression was favored by a change in focus.
part of his life accustoming the public to his genius, In the compositions of the 1850s, whatever the subject
finds it very difficult not to repeat himself—to revital- treated—literary history, mythological fable, Moroccan mem-
ize his talent in some sense—so as not to fall into ories—the relative size of the human figures diminished, and
the same banalities and commonplaces that are the their forms grew less substantial. They blended into the set-
weakness of men and of schools as they grow old.32 ting amid accessories that, for their part, took on a more
defined character, a greater refinement, and an increased
Yet everything suggests that Delacroix was persuaded narrative verve.
he had avoided that pitfall, owing to his awareness of it. Not That change is easy to see if we compare the 1846 version
without pleasure, he admitted to pride on the eve of the of The Abduction of Rebecca (cat. 105) with the 1858 version
Salon, believing that he had displayed a restored vitality displayed at the Salon in 1859 (cat. 141). The first version promi-
through his many submissions. He was convinced of having nently features the Rubenesque tangle of struggling bodies
achieved perfection: “I accomplished a real tour de force in (the overpowered Rebecca, the horse, and the two Saracen
finishing my paintings for the Salon. I have no fewer than slaves). The group is situated on a bulging hillock, furnished
eight. As you well know, I’m not someone who would impro- with a few discreet war trophies, which establishes a solid
vise in such circumstances: they have all reached the point foreground. In the middle ground, the figure of the Knight
where every difficulty seems to be overcome.”33 A month Templar, Brian de Bois-­Guilbert, organizer of the assault,
later, he had lost his illusions: “I haven’t had a spare moment brings about an artful transition: the whirling movement of his
or the courage to go to the Salon. I’m afraid the poor paint- white mantle and the gesture of his arm lead the beholder’s
ings there are not having the full effect that my paternal heart eyes to the end of a tortuous path, where, in the background,
would have desired. In any case, they have been strikingly the castle besieged by Front-­de-­Boeuf is burning. The fortress
rebuffed by the critics.”34 He admitted to his cousin how is a vague silhouette, vanishing into the sky in a burst of flames
deeply wounded he was: “If I was not turned away from the and smoke, thus casting into relief the solidity of the fore-
Salon, I was at least trounced by the critics. I console myself ground group.
from their sting the best I can, but I’m afraid I’ve been When Delacroix returned to the subject twelve years
attacked to the core of my being. Self-­worth follows a stormy later, he completely changed the composition. This time, the
path.”35 By mid-­June, when a rave review by Baudelaire finally action is composed of three moments. Rebecca has not yet
appeared—though unfortunately in an obscure magazine been carried off on the white horse, which a Saracen holds in
about to go bankrupt36—the damage had been done: “You the foreground. She struggles in the arms of the Knight
come to my aid at a time when I have been scolded and vili- Templar striding in the middle ground, his retreat protected
fied by a rather large number of serious critics (or claiming by an accomplice brandishing a shield against pursuers, who
to be so). . . . Having had the good fortune to please you, I am can be made out through a portal behind the principal figures.
heartened and find their reprimands easier to take. You treat Discernible in the foreground to the left, amid a jumble of
me the way that only the noble dead are treated.”37 That flash beams, stones, and crossbows, is the dying body of one of the
of wit may have had a bitter aftertaste, given the cruel funerary besiegers. Instead of a compact group, as in the version of
orations of Du Camp, Mantz, and Rousseau. 1846, at least five dispersed characters now participate in the
Delacroix was clearly not expecting such a debacle and narrative. A sixth protagonist may be added: the architecture
was all the more affected by it. Discomfort and incomprehen- itself, which comes to life, imposing and moody. By means of
sion were felt on all sides. a visual personification, Delacroix makes the towers howl and
spit through their gaping maws. The exaggeratedly curved

THE GENIUS OF COLOR: 1855–63 173

 CAT. 105 The Abduction of Rebecca, 1846

174 DELACROIX
CAT. 141 Abduction of Rebecca, 1858

175
 CAT. 143 Amadis de Gaule Delivers a Damsel from Galpan’s Castle, 1859–60

path shortens considerably the distance between the planes, The half-­light is offset by the gleam of the many metallic and
depriving the proportions of verisimilitude. embroidered accessories strewn about the painting, an effect
The impression of feigned naïveté emanating from the achieved by thin brushstrokes of white or pure yellow. It
painting irritated critics at the Salon of 1859: accentuates the preciosity of the paintings, but it seems inap-
propriate to the dramatic tension required by the subject.
Here, the ébauche, the sketch, has turned into débauche, The composition Amadis de Gaule Delivers a Damsel from
debauchery. The figures have lost their limbs in the Galpan’s Castle (cat. 143) has an even more naive set design.
fight; they catch up to them and adjust them at random. Painted the following year, it was inspired by Amadis de Gaule,
Rebecca floats in her ravisher’s arms like a dress a chivalric romance set down in writing in the early sixteenth
snagged on the branches of a misshapen tree. The century. Renouncing the foil figures still used in the second
Knight Templar’s slave stretches out a seven-­league leg. version of The Abduction of Rebecca, Delacroix placed only war
The horse he is holding belongs to the bestiary of trophies in the foreground. The two principal figures are
heraldic art. An oppressive light, as we might imagine shown in profile on a single plane parallel to the picture
the light of dead planets deprived of atmosphere, plane. In the background is a frieze of combatants in front of
exacerbates the sadness of that gloomy scene.38 the fortified walls, seen in cavalier perspective. The saturated

176 DELACROIX
colors (golden yellow, royal blue, white, vermilion), the Should that impression of instability be construed as a flaw?
shallowness of the scene, and the codification of gestures Does it reveal a hesitation, a resistance, even an incapacity to
accentuate the similarity to so-­called primitive forms of be of his own time?
European art. Delacroix seems to have updated scenes of a
city’s surrender, found in abundance in the French illumi-
nated manuscripts of the fifteenth century, or to have repro- The Vigor and Diversity of
duced the simplicity of Jesus Handing the Keys to Saint Peter, as Landscape Painting in the 1850s
Pietro Perugino formulated it for the Sistine Chapel in Rome
during the same era. Delacroix, who for several years had been a member of the
A similar dispersal is evident in Ovid among the Scythians Salon jury, could not have failed to notice the vigor landscape
(see cat. 142). This was the only composition at the Salon of painting had achieved since the late 1840s. The genre now
1859 to be appreciated by reviewers, who thought they saw exemplified the vitality of French painting. The Salon of 1859
the mark of the master in it. Mantz hailed it as “one of the had confirmed the shift. Jules Castagnary, a fervent supporter
most beautiful, one of the most poetic landscapes ever trans- of Courbet and Jean-­François Millet, was delighted by the
figured by his dream.” But he went on to note a number of “new revolution”:
inconsistencies, which ultimately led him to modify his first
favorable impression and to see the work as a painful failure: Then the works of T. Rousseau, Corot, Daubigny,
Troyon, and Millet came into being: works of force,
This landscape would produce an even greater effect if melancholy, grace, or gloomy grandeur, which have
the figures the artist placed in the foreground were made landscape painting the most important branch of
better subordinated one to another, in observance of a the art of our time. And that is why the roles are now
more systematic hierarchy. Ovid, the protagonist of the reversed: what was once minuscule is now in the
drama from a moral perspective, is too small, too forefront, what was at the pinnacle barely exists any-
understated in the painting; accessory characters, even more, except in name. What have become of religious
animals, absorb the beholder’s initial attention and paintings and history paintings? What have become of
greatly attenuate the exiled poet’s importance. Here, architecture and the epic? They are dead, but they do
and this is a serious flaw, the episode masks the poem.39 not want to admit it. . . . The future lies with canvases
of small dimensions, those that express the human and,
Most shocking was the disproportionate size of the mare: as it were, the earthly side of life.41
“A gigantic beast that clutters up the foreground, the mare of
the Trojan Horse, you might say,” exclaimed Saint-­Victor. He The landscape genre was all the more vigorous for hav-
attempted to find a moral justification, however: “Perhaps the ing undergone a profound reformation: the tradition of the
painter, by that structural exaggeration, wanted to depict the composite historical landscape (paysage composé) had gradually
barbarian horse, the animal created by the primal forest and died out (the Prix de Rome for historical landscape painting
endowed by it with the necessary vitality to plow through the would be eliminated in 1863). Rousseau, Jules Dupré,
mud and wade powerfully through the swamps.”40 Courbet, and Charles-­François Daubigny, abandoning the
Delacroix wished to inscribe his figures in an expansive harmonic compositions of Nicolas Poussin in favor of the
setting, one that enveloped and interacted with them, at the animistic force of seventeenth-­century Dutch landscape paint-
risk of disturbing the fragile narrative equilibrium and the ing (that of Jacob van Ruisdael and Meindert Hobbema),
classic subordination of setting to actors. But the painter never gave prestige to the trees, springs, and rocks of what were
went so far as pure landscape painting. Might Delacroix, ever reputed to be the intact territories of rural France. Vernacular
on the alert for developments in the art of his time, have been modern landscape painting was obstinately rejected by the
torn, both captivated by the dominance of landscape painting jury of the Salon, which under the July Monarchy was in the
but also unwilling to follow the artists of the Barbizon school, hands of the Institut. Nevertheless, it met with growing com-
who had abandoned the traditional primacy of history painting? mercial success among dealers, art lovers, and collectors

THE GENIUS OF COLOR: 1855–63 177

 FIG. 71Eugène Fromentin
(French, 1820–1876), Gazelle
Hunt in the Hodna, Algeria, 1856.
Oil on canvas, 389/16 x 773/16 in.
(98 x 196 cm). Musée d’Arts,
Nantes (inv. 978)

throughout the 1840s, before finally receiving official honors in his travel narratives, A Summer in the Sahara (1854) and
after the 1848 Revolution. Delacroix closely followed that A Year in the Sahel (1859). Delacroix, encouraged by George
ascent. Through his friendship with Paul Huet, he was regu- Sand, read both books with interest.45 Fromentin, awarded a
larly in contact with the painters of the Barbizon school. second-­prize medal in the landscape genre in 1849, came to
He displayed a great admiration for the works of Théodore the public’s attention at the Salon of 1857 (fig. 71) and tri-
Rousseau, which he often recommended.42 He did not go umphed at the Salon of 1859.46 From the start, some critics,
so far as to support Rousseau and Dupré in their attempt to foremost among them Baudelaire, established a connection
create an exhibition in 1847 that would have rivaled the between Fromentin and Delacroix: “Of the young celebrities,
Salon.43 In 1850, however, when Rousseau took the risk of one of the most solidly established is M. Fromentin. . . .
organizing a public sale of about fifty works, including studies, His painting in the strict sense, wise, powerful, and disci-
Delacroix twice went to see them on display at Galerie plined, obviously has its source in Eugène Delacroix, who
Durand-­Ruel and admitted that he was “charmed by a number also exhibits that artful and natural understanding of color.”
of extremely original pieces.”44 An advocate of retaining the But might not Delacroix have been beholden to the
presence of human figures in landscape paintings and of the younger painter’s art as well? Although the heroic and classi-
primacy of the imagination, he followed with interest the art cal interpretation of Maghrebian manners is indisputably a
of Diaz, who was then reviving the genre of the fête galante. It legacy of Delacroix, it is not unreasonable to think that he
is not impossible that he was also stimulated by the efforts of was in turn encouraged by the expansiveness of Fromentin’s
Courbet in the same genre. His Young Ladies of the Village vast landscapes, which glorify the prairies and boundless
(Metropolitan Museum), on view at the Salon of 1852 and skies of the Atlas Mountains. Baudelaire thought so when
later at the home of the duc de Morny, displays interesting he contemplated Delacroix’s Ovid among the Scythians (see
similarities to Ovid among the Scythians, both in its composition cat. 142): “I am convinced that this painting has a quite
and in its odd proportions. particular charm for delicate souls. I would almost swear
The vitality of French landscape painting not only was that, more than other paintings, it has pleased nervous
evident in the representation of vernacular territories but and poetic temperaments—that of M. Fromentin, for exam-
also found expression in depictions of the French colonies ple.”47 Zacharie Astruc, gazing at Fromentin’s Souvenir of
of North Africa. In that regard, the name on everyone’s Algeria, exhibited at the Salon of 1859, imagined that
lips in the late 1850s was Eugène Fromentin. Delacroix must “Delacroix must have applauded these proud horses in
have been moved by a young painter who had distinguished such a bold color.”48
himself during three long stays in Algeria (1846, 1847–48, The dynamic surrounding landscape painting at the time
and 1852–53) and by his remarkable talent for description was thus echoed in Delacroix’s practice, but it is difficult to

178 DELACROIX
FIG. 72 The Pond at Le Louroux,
ca. 1822–28. Oil on canvas, 11 x
211/4 in. (28 x 54 cm). Musée du
Louvre, Paris, on deposit at the
Musée National Eugène-­Delacroix,
Paris (MNR 232) (J L191)

judge the artist’s position in the debate. In 1854 he wrote the

words “On landscape” in his Journal, probably in view of an
essay or an entry in his future Dictionary of the Fine Arts,
though no entry was ever composed.49 He returned to it four
months later, in a notably brief definition: “On landscape,
as accompaniment to the subjects.”50 He took note of “the con-
tempt of moderns for that interesting element,” before quickly
mentioning the more or less accomplished talent of Rubens,
Titian, Rembrandt, and Watteau, in order to establish a con-
nection between their figures and the landscapes in which
they are inscribed. Delacroix took no more trouble formulat-
ing, in the introspective and serene context of the Journal,
his personal definition of landscape painting. Was it for lack House with a Red Roof, “English Sketchbook,” folio 4 recto, 1825.
FIG. 73
of interest, since his practice of landscape painting corre- Watercolor over graphite on paper, overall 55/8 x 181/2 in. (14.3 x 47 cm).
sponded to the traditional habit of “accompanying” historical Musée du Louvre, Paris (RF 9143)
subjects? Or did it stem from his difficulty in knowing how to
formulate a complex and shifting relationship with that genre
of painting?
When he visited his brother in Touraine in the 1820s, he
rendered in oil, with great subtlety, the monochrome grays of
Landscape Studies: A Consistent the pond in Le Louroux under an overcast sky (fig. 72). While
Preliminary Exercise staying in England in the summer of 1825 and enjoying jaunts
on the River Thames, he perfected his use of watercolor by
Delacroix consistently and regularly practiced landscape painting the vast hilly perspectives of the English countryside.
painting. The activity seems to have corresponded to two He also tried his hand—and this was far more unusual—at a
widespread objectives among history painters of his time. few fragments of urban views, captured in watercolor or wash
Above all, it was a kind of training, yielding personal exercises drawings from a window: a modest brick facade stands out
not intended for exhibition but that might serve as a support against the forest of London chimneys (fig. 73); the towers
(without ever being quoted literally) for the backgrounds of of Saint-­Sulpice jut out from the Faubourg Saint-­Germain,
his historical compositions. observed from the garret occupied by his friend Thales Fielding.

THE GENIUS OF COLOR: 1855–63 179

FIG. 74 The Coast of Spain at Salobreña, January 19, 1832, “North African and Spanish Sketchbook,” folio 4 recto, 1832. Pastel on paper, overall 61/4 x 1611/16 in.
(15.8 x 42.4 cm). Musée du Louvre, Paris (RF 9154) (Johnson 1995, no. 21)

FIG. 75 Torrent on the River Valentin, August 11, 1845, “Pyrénées Sketchbook,” folios 32 verso and 33 recto, 1845. Watercolor over graphite on paper, overall
49/16 x 159/16 in. (11.6 x 39.5 cm). Musée du Louvre, Paris (RF 52997)

The trip to Morocco was an opportunity to fill many Delacroix with high mountains, owing to a stay at the spa
notebooks with studies. For the first time, Delacroix saw village of Eaux-­Bonnes in 1845. The Pyrénées notebook
mountain landscapes rushing down to the sea. Observing (fig. 75) is fascinating not only for its vast conventional
the Andalusian coast off Salobreña (fig. 74), he depicted panoramas but also for its depictions of torrents. The artist
the terraced mountains separated by veils of blue mist, attempted to get as close to them as possible, in order to
from the promontory with the city clinging to it to the snow-­ record their violence. The water, constricted by rocks and
covered peaks of the Sierra Nevada. More than the Alps, which caressed by the wild grasses caught on them, slips out the
he would never cross, it was the Pyrénées that acquainted narrow window of the notebook sheet and invades the

180 DELACROIX
 Interior of a Wood, ca. 1842–46. Watercolor and gouache on paper, 611/16 x 107/16 in. (17 x 26.5 cm).
FIG. 76
Maison de George Sand, Nohant-­Vic, Centre des Monuments Nationaux (inv. NOH2009003907)

neighboring page. The frame is so tight and the forcefulness of Sénart), a “sumptuous and ancestral” massif, “as rich at the
of the elements so centrifugal that it is not clear at first which time in oak trees and rare essential oils as the vicinity of
is the top of the drawing and which the bottom. Fontainebleau and Barbizon” (cat. 116).51 There Delacroix
Visits to George Sand’s home in Berry were an occasion could contemplate at leisure the changes of the colors over the
to study the foliage on the grounds of Nohant and the tangle course of a day. He could set down his memories immediately
of the surrounding woods (fig. 76). The challenge this time on returning to his little country studio, either as drawings and
was to convey the soul of a clump of trees while striving to paintings or in written form, trying to render visible phenom-
distinguish both the aspect of individual trees and the succession ena in pictorial terms. Late afternoon and sunset greatly inter-
of receding planes. Ink or a dark wash allowed him to cast into ested the painter, because the simultaneous contrasts of colors,
sharp relief the principal branches, either with bright colors especially the tension between orange and blue, reached their
set against a mass of dark foliage or in silhouette, backlit by a greatest intensity at that time of day. In autumn 1850 he noted,
portion of sky or a sudden shaft of light in a clearing.
His study of the landscape intensified from the late On that walk, we [he and his housekeeper, Jenny]
1840s on. Studies done in oil and pastel were more numerous observed some extraordinary effects. It was sunset. The
and more polished, and three themes recurred persistently: chrome and lake tones were most brilliant on the side
the contrasts in the sky at sunset, the interplay of clouds and where it was light and the shadows were extraordi-
waves on the sea, and the abundance and transparency of narily blue and cold. And in the same way, the shadows
forest foliage. cast by the trees, which were all yellow, terre d’Italie,
Beginning in the summer of 1844, the artist made visits to and reddish brown, and directly lit by the sun’s rays,
a small country house he had rented in Champrosay, which he stood out against part of the gray clouds, which were
ultimately purchased and occupied regularly beginning in 1858. verging on blue. . . . What made this effect appear so
That new home base allowed him to take long walks in the vivid in the landscape was precisely this law of contrast.
surrounding area, which had “the advantage of being located I noticed the same phenomenon at sunset yesterday,
between the meandering course of the Seine” and the forest November 3; it is more brilliant and striking than at

THE GENIUS OF COLOR: 1855–63 181

 CAT. 116 Forest View with an Oak Tree, ca. 1849–50

midday only because the contrasts are sharper. The dwindling light alternate with the dark green of the hedges,
gray of the clouds in the evening verges on blue; the dense clumps of fruit trees in the foreground, and the
the clear parts of the sky are bright yellow or orange. shadows cast by tall poplars. He would explore the landscape
The general rule is: the greater the contrast, the more at Champrosay with even greater freedom of brushwork in a
brilliant the effect.52 somewhat later sketch now in a private collection (cat. 137).
Studies of the sky at twilight required working in full
In his afternoon landscape study (cat. 113), Delacroix placed color and quickly, so as not to miss any part of the ephemeral
the horizon in the upper quarter of the composition in order spectacle and to replicate the contrasts and the strong luminos-
to display, with the richness of a tapestry, the colored contrasts ity of the sunset, even while correcting for the growing dusk.
of the bocage: the warm colors of the fields accented by the That no doubt explains the use of pastel in place of watercolor.

182 DELACROIX
CAT. 113 Landscape at Champrosay, possibly 1849

CAT. 137 Hilly Landscape, ca. 1855

 CAT. 121 Sunset, ca. 1850

Two sky studies in pastel illustrate the variety of Delacroix’s kind of pastel drawing of the effect of sunlight with an eye to
practice. One shows a distinct gradation of warm tones in a my ceiling.”55 The abstract nature of the ceiling, the subject of
cloudless sky;53 the sensation of depth disappears, evoked solely which was Apollo Slays the Python, did not prevent Delacroix
by the ground, which takes on intense blue shades. The other from feeling the need to turn to natural phenomena for the
shows a sky rendered in high relief and in perspective, sculpted structure and tones best suited to represent the god of the sun
by vast clouds that make the earth look rather flat and gray.54 and of civilization. If the ceiling (see fig. 53) is examined
Elsewhere, too, Delacroix sought a mandorla effect, with the without regard for the human figures, it becomes clear that
rays of the declining sun tracing beams of light through the the composition is entirely structured by a landscape. A slash
clouds (cat. 121). mark made of black clouds divides the image in two: the lower
The aim of this research, conducted in summer and part is of water and stone, the upper half illuminated by the
autumn 1850, was to execute not a landscape painting in oil or Apollonian sun, the golden rays of which gradually dissipate
even the background for a historical scene but rather the into blue. A month after rendering in pastel the effects of the
ceiling of the Gallery of Apollo: “The view of the landscape at sun in Champrosay, the painter, having returned to Paris,
the bridge and while climbing [is] charming because of the pulled everything together: “I have been pleased with my
springtime greenery and the effect of the shadows made by ceiling composition . . . only since yesterday, after making the
the clouds passing over everything. When I got home, I did a alterations to the sky with pastel.”56

184 DELACROIX
 CAT. 126 Study of the Sea, 1851(?)

The Sea, Antechamber to the Underworld dated August 25, 1854, regarding the effect of the morning sun
on the sea in Dieppe:
Seascapes were another motif that occupied Delacroix in the
1840s and 1850s (cat. 126). He had returned to the home On my walk this morning, I spent a long time studying
of his cousin Bataille at Valmont Abbey, near Fécamp, in the sea. The sun was behind me, and thus the face of
September 1838, then again in 1840, before visiting Trouville the waves as they rose up in front of me was yellow,
in September 1841, where he regularly swam in the sea. After and the side turned toward the bottom reflected the
another stay in Valmont in October 1849, at which time he sky. Cloud shadows passing over all this produced
made an excursion to Etretat, he arranged to stay in Dieppe charming effects: at the bottom, where the sea was blue
during his subsequent summer visits. Between 1851 and 1860 and green, the shadows appeared violet; a violet and
he stayed at a hotel that looked out on the quai Duquesne, golden tone extended over the nearer part as well
allowing him to see the activities of the port in all kinds of when shadow covered it. The waves were like agate. In
weather. Walking along the jetty, on the beach, and to the foot these shaded parts, you get the same relationship
of the cliffs, the painter did many studies, in written form and between the yellow waves, facing the sun side, and the
as drawings. A typical example is a notation in his Journal, blue and metallic patches reflecting the sky.57

THE GENIUS OF COLOR: 1855–63 185

 CAT. 128 The Sea at Dieppe, 1852

The precision of these observations can be linked to an (fig. 77), which also passed through the studio sale. Delacroix
oil study of the sea in Dieppe. Brilliant in its concision and sculpted in three dimensions the first four rows of waves,
accuracy, the work was found in the studio after the artist’s depicted as gray crests, the intensity of which increases as they
death (cat. 128). It is painted on cardboard, probably of the rise. They are separated by light-­colored furrows where the
same type offered ready-­made to traveling painters by the art white paper is left visible, merely punctuated by small strokes
supply trade (especially in Britain). This view may have repro- of sky blue. The artist, abandoning the artifice of heightening
duced an impression he had of the sea in the late afternoon, in white gouache, managed to make the metallic gleam of the
perhaps in Dieppe in mid-­September 1852: “At about three waves perceptible simply by manipulating watercolor and
o’clock, I went down to take my last look at the sea. It was the reserve of the paper. This is indicated by an annotation in
perfectly calm, and I have seldom seen it more lovely. . . . graphite in the lower right-­hand corner: “On the tips of the
The sketch I made from memory was of this sea: golden sky, waves directly under the sun, luminous / specks in a very /
boats waiting to return with the tide.”58 As in the notation of circumscribed space.” He made similar inscriptions on other
August 1854, the attention is drawn to the modulation of the such studies (cat. 132).
sea: blue and green in the shadow of the clouds on the right, These studies must be linked to several paintings with a
dazzling directly below the sun on the left, and gray in the maritime setting that he produced from 1840 on, though it is
foreground. The waves are carved into facets simply through a not possible to determine which influenced the other: Were
juxtaposition of greenish-­gray brushstrokes (to which a greater the compositions sparked by the studies done during visits to
or lesser quantity of ocher had been added), applied on a the coast? Or was the aim of these experiments to cultivate the
smooth ground of pale gray. A few pointed brush marks sym- preexisting desire to do historical compositions located on
bolizing the boats indicate the scale and depth. the water? The connection is difficult to establish because,
The artistic challenge of representing waves is the pri- between his studies and the final compositions, the painter
mary subject of the brilliant watercolor in the Albertina introduced a radical change of register, the important work of

186 DELACROIX
FIG. 77 Sunset on the Sea, Dieppe, ca. 1852–54. Watercolor over graphite on paper, 9 x 137/8 in. (22.8 x 35.2 cm). The Albertina
Museum, Vienna (inv. 24099)

CAT. 132 The Sea at Dieppe, probably 1854

187
 CAT. 98 The Shipwreck of Don Juan, 1840

the imagination. The studies were often done in clear and When the sea returns to Delacroix’s paintings, therefore, it
calm weather, whereas the painted compositions, on literary reanimates the infernal visions of his first success, The Barque
or religious subjects, are always full of pathos and some- of Dante (see fig. 2).
times tragedy: The first of Delacroix’s seascape compositions is a trag-
edy unfolding in a compressed space, The Shipwreck of Don
Sea, seascapes . . . Seascape painters do not generally Juan (cat. 98). When Delacroix first exhibited it at the Salon
represent the sea well. The same reproach can be of 1841 he made no mention of its literary source. The subject
made of them as of landscape painters. They want to is taken from canto 2 of Lord Byron’s poem Don Juan, first
display too much science: they do portraits of waves, published in 1819, which well-­informed critics recognized.
just as landscape painters do portraits of trees, ground, Obliged to flee Spain after an adultery scandal, the seducer
mountains, etc. They do not concern themselves crosses the Mediterranean aboard a ship that founders after
enough with the effect on the imagination, which too several storms. The crew drifts in a boat for more than a week
many details, even when they are correct, divert from under a scorching sun. Delacroix chose the moment when,
the principal spectacle of immensity or depth, an idea having exhausted their food supply, including Don Juan’s
that may be conveyed by a certain style.59 spaniel, the shipwrecked men and women make the decision

188 DELACROIX
to sacrifice one of their own by drawing lots, in the hope of
surviving by eating him. Don Juan refuses; in the end he will
be the only survivor, the others having hastened their deaths
through cannibalism. The tragic situation of their collective
damnation, cast into relief by the writer’s black humor, pro-
vided a choice subject for Romantic sensibilities: it therefore
found its way into the Journal in the spring of 1824. The recent
death of Gericault, whose Raft of the Medusa had deeply
affected Delacroix and had formed his artistic temperament,
may have both liberated him and sparked a desire to test his
mettle against the illustrious elder painter. While working on
Massacres at Chios, Delacroix had noted in his Journal that he
again had “the desire to do Lord Byron’s Shipwrecked.” It is
important to pay attention to what follows, however: “but to
do it at the seaside, at the scene.”60 What are we to conclude?
Did the prod of literary inspiration prove insufficient for that FIG. 78 Study for Don Juan, possibly ca. 1825–30. Brown ink and brown

particular subject? Was Delacroix afraid that he would not wash over pencil on paper, 91/16 x 1113/16 in. (23 x 30 cm). Musée du
adequately master the depiction of his subject unless he came Louvre, Paris (RF 6743 recto)

face-to-face with the sea? Did he wish to distinguish himself or

improve on Gericault by giving a greater narrative and plastic whether the study of waves in the Albertina (fig. 77) is
aspect to the sea, which in Gericault occupies only a peripheral linked to this period, since it has many points in common with
place? Are we to think that the artist postponed the execution the completed painting: the parallel arrangement and firm
of the oil on canvas for fifteen years because he was unable to drawing of the waves in the foreground; the placement of
spend long periods of time by the sea until the late 1830s? the horizon line in the upper two-­thirds of the frame; and an
The project did remain on hold for many years, as attested orange glow suggesting the setting sun. The intentionally
by early drawings, one of the earliest of which probably dates blurry and fluid treatment of the oil paint used for the sky and
to the second half of the 1820s (fig. 78). Lee Johnson rightly water conveys the desire to preserve the watercolor effect of
noted its sharp lines and the profiles stylized to the point of the study on paper.
caricature, which are comparable to those in the Faust series. The time elapsed between the plan and its execution
There are also effects of high contrast similar to those in The also led to changes in the conception of the subject, which
Murder of the Bishop of Liège (see cat. 64).61 Delacroix, fasci- strayed further from Byron’s text. Gautier noted:
nated by the fate of the shipwrecked crew, was at first con-
cerned primarily with the infernal circle formed by them. The if you reread the passage in Byron’s poem from which
sea is suggested only laconically, and the study has not yet the artist drew his subject for The Shipwreck of Don
reached the level of development seen in the finished painting. Juan, you may be surprised that he did not place his
About 1840, then, at a time coinciding with his first boat between a sea smooth as glass and a sky of a
prolonged visits along the English Channel, Delacroix seems pitiless blue, which increase the horror of the scene by
finally to have tackled the painted composition. Of his stay in the irony of the contrast. But the resources of poetry
Valmont in September 1838, he wrote: “I have seen quite a bit are not the same as those of painting: a blue sky and a
of the landscape, a great deal of the sea, which I now know by calm sea might not have given as good an idea of the
heart.”62 He added that he was not working, but the success of danger faced as these heavy, churning waves under
The Shipwreck of Don Juan is difficult to explain without the clouds of a sinister lividity.63
intermediate studies done directly from nature or executed
from memory a few minutes after the artist had observed That artistic license also applied to the protagonists.
maritime phenomena. It is not unreasonable to wonder Delacroix reduced the number of shipwrecked individuals

THE GENIUS OF COLOR: 1855–63 189

 CAT. 99 Christ on the Lake of Genesareth, ca. 1841

from about thirty in Byron’s text to about twenty; he also homage, in the guise of a quotation, to Gericault’s Raft of the
broadened the frame, introducing more space and a greater Medusa, since it reproduces in reverse that painting’s two
dynamism into the composition by separating some figures sources of light, emanating from both the left foreground
from the group. In the boat’s bow are three prostrate young and the horizon. Another point of confluence is the clothing:
men, while visible in the stern are a dying woman, a melan- although Don Juan lived during the ancien régime, the cos-
choly child, and a man wrapped in a mantle, his hat pulled tumes here clearly derive from nineteenth-century, which is
over his eyes (perhaps Don Juan himself, revulsed and resis- to say, modern, civilian and military dress. It is therefore easier
tant). This last figure, placed discreetly on the rim, registers to understand what Delacroix may have been suggesting when
only belatedly with the beholder, whose eyes are caught up in he first presented his painting to the public under the generic
the complex light effects produced by the artful combination title “A Shipwreck.” It was a wink to the timid “Shipwreck
of the other figures. Rendered by means of chiaroscuro, they Scene,” the title Gericault used at the Salon of 1819 for The
are sculpted by the light of a storm that takes place beyond Raft of the Medusa to evade censorship.
the picture frame, somewhere, it is suggested, behind the It was probably in the early 1840s as well that Delacroix
beholder’s right shoulder. If the orange spot on the horizon had his first ideas for the dramatic scene Christ Asleep during
is interpreted as the setting sun, then its light is not based the Tempest (cats. 99, 129, 131). The iconography of the
in reality. Yet it is more than a mere theatrical device: it is subject had been wildly popular in Mannerist and Baroque
responsible for the fantastic atmosphere of this ambiguous painting, particularly in Flanders and Holland, from Pieter
scene, where the sea is all but indistinguishable from the Bruegel the Elder to Ludolf Backhuysen. Delacroix chose not
waters of the Underworld. The picture is, in addition, an the moment in the Gospel account when Jesus rebukes the

190 DELACROIX
CAT. 129 Christ Asleep during the Tempest, ca. 1853

CAT. 131 Christ on the Sea of Galilee, 1854

 Peter Paul Rubens. Christ Calming the Sea, ca. 1608–9. Oil on
FIG. 79 FIG. 80 François Joseph Heim (French, 1787–1865). Christ on the Lake of
wood, 393/16 x 551/2 in. (99.5 x 141 cm). Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Genesareth, ca. 1810–20. Chalk and black conté crayon on brown paper,
Dresden (inv. Gal.-­Nr. 1001) 173/4 x 247/16 in. (45 x 62 cm). Musée Jean-­Jacques Henner, Paris
(inv. JJHD2008-­0-­2)

wind to calm the storm but the previous moment, when he is Dante and Virgil through the dark waters of the Lake of Dis, in
still sleeping, oblivious to the danger. Meanwhile, the apostles the composition of 1822 (see fig. 2).64
are terror-­stricken, as the vessel takes on water on all sides. As More recent sources, which may have influenced
indicated by the version at the Metropolitan Museum (cat. 129), Delacroix’s ideas for successive versions, should not be under-
Delacroix constructed his composition based on a work by estimated. One might think especially of the Dutch painters
Rubens, previously attributed to Jacob Jordaens (fig. 79). Rembrandt and Backhuysen, who placed the action in the
Delacroix probably knew it through an engraving. As in the more realist context of a fishing boat and opened up the
Rubensian model, in his painting the horizon line is placed painting. Delacroix may also have drawn on references dating
extremely high, almost along the upper edge of the picture, to his youth. Perhaps he remembered Saint Thomas Aquinas
and imprisons the protagonists inside the raging waters. The Preaching His Confidence in God during a Tempest (Petit Palais,
ship, seen from above, is tipped forward and crosses the Paris), commissioned from Ary Scheffer by the prefecture of
picture field on the diagonal. Clearly wishing that no element the Seine for the church of Saint-­Thomas-­d’Aquin in Paris and
should extend beyond the frame, Delacroix eliminated the exhibited to great acclaim at the Salon of 1824. Could he have
mast. It is replaced symbolically by two apostles, one with his known about a planned work by François Joseph Heim,
arms raised, the other with a mantle wafting like a sail. Had ­probably from the 1810s or 1820s, for which sketches survive
Delacroix noticed the incoherence of the position occupied (fig. 80)? The version painted by Delacroix in 1853, now
by Rubens’s rowers, who have their backs to the stern? In any in Zürich, has the same orientation.65 As in Heim’s work, the
event, he reversed the direction of the boat, restoring the golden aureole around Jesus’ head, a detail absent in the
logical placement of the rowers, backs to the prow. Jesus, doz- Dutch and Flemish sources, evokes the art of the “Primitives.”
ing and wrapped in a blue tunic, is near the helm. Blessed and These two works have a third point in common: Delacroix
close to heaven, he is in Manichaean opposition to the bare-­ represents distinctly the moment when two apostles touch the
chested rowers struggling against the material world in the arm of the Messiah to wake him.
lower foreground. As they lean forward, their musculature is The painter seems to have derived pleasure from pro-
evident and evokes that of Phlegyas, the ferryman who guided ducing a series of variations for dealers (Beugniet, Petit) and
enlightened art lovers (comte Grzymala), as well as for his
CAT. 129 Christ Asleep during the Tempest, ca. 1853, detail own enjoyment, as indicated by the two versions still in his

THE GENIUS OF COLOR: 1855–63 193

studio when he died.66 The image, at first simple and highly many drawings executed on that occasion indicate his curios-
symbolic, became more complex and increasingly elaborate as ity and enthusiasm.
Delacroix reprised it. Yet that infatuation does not mean that the modern
The first versions radically contrast, in the manner of the world had suddenly burst forth in Delacroix’s art. The sailing
Symbolists, the warm colors of the human world (bronze flesh ships he observed were already considered archaic in the
tones, red and brown tunics, the wood of the ship) and the 1850s, and he looked at them critically, as a man of his time:
turquoise-blue of water and sky. Only the blue-and-white “How cumbersome and inefficient all that masting is most of
tunic wrapped around the sleeping Jesus seems to establish a the time: until the advent of steam, which changed everything,
connection to nature and to anticipate his imminent mastery that art had not advanced a single step in two hundred
of the waves. In the New York version (see cat. 129), the artist years.”68 Although he was doubtless aware of the anachronism
even placed a mountain peak directly above Jesus’ head: that of inserting an eighteenth-­or nineteenth-­century yawl into a
sculptural effect, which is not apparent at first glance, symbol- scene from the Gospels, in his view the motif was picturesque
izes with great effectiveness the steadfastness and loftiness of enough not to break the spell of a painting with a biblical
faith. As in the case of The Shipwreck of Don Juan (see cat. 98), subject. These studies, then, in undoing his own expectations,
Delacroix rendered the various passions gripping the apostles were ultimately useful to him. What remains to be fully under-
by highly demonstrative gestures: arms held out to call for stood are the reasons for this affirmation of pure art. And why,
help, to seize the helm, to grab a mantle that is flying off, or to in the last versions of Christ Asleep during the Tempest, are the
cry out one’s distress. Then there is the most unexpected boat and the sailors emancipated from the narrative account?
detail, a sick or terrorized apostle curled up in the prow. The We may propose a formal rationale: the masts of the yawls
compact cluster of figures contained in the mandorla formed allowed Delacroix to balance a composition that had become
by the ship allowed Delacroix to counterbalance the disorder more expansive because the frame had been widened.
and to keep the composition very simple. Compared with the first versions of the subject, the horizon is
In the later version, in Baltimore, which dates to 1854 lower, so that, classically, it divides the seascape into two equal
(cat. 131), the palette is less systematic and more varied: Christ halves, leaving more room for the mountainous shore and the
has traded his blue mantle for a raspberry-­pink drapery, which sky than for the lake. Formally speaking, the masts connect the
complements the emerald color of the water and corresponds sky and the lake, creating a poetic analogy between the sails
to the mauve and blue accents of the overcast sky and the flapping in the wind and the shreds of bright clouds that seem
mountain chain in the background. Many little cream-­colored to cling to the masting.
curls heighten the brilliance of the waves, the subtle swelling To that formalist explanation we may add a second
of the sails, and the glow of the sky, broken here and there by hypothesis: Delacroix’s imagination was invested in the motif.
a ray of sunlight. The beholder’s eye, previously caught up in A reflection made in Dieppe the following year is enlightening:
a circular movement, is now attracted simultaneously to differ-
ent points in the painting. A radical change has also come It strikes me more forcibly even than last year, as I
over the protagonists: the apostles have become experienced watch the scenes in this seaside town, the ships, and
sailors, fitted out with the trousers and caps typical of a barge- the interesting types of people, that not enough has
man in eighteenth-­and nineteenth-­century Europe. Far from been made of such subjects. Even ships do not play a
giving in to paralysis and fear, each attends to the most urgent large enough part in marine paintings. I would like to
matter as the storm threatens, coordinating with the other see them the heroines of the scene. I adore them; they
protagonists to lower the yards and gather in the sails. The give me an impression of strength, and grace and
boat, generic and rustic in the first versions, has been replaced picturesqueness, and the more disheveled they look,
by a two-­masted fishing vessel similar to a yawl, large fleets of the more beautiful I find them. Marine painters render
which could be found along the Atlantic seaboard in the them every which way: as long as they keep the pro-
fishing harbors of the nineteenth century. The rigging of the portions correct, and the rigging conforms to the
two masts probably originated in a study from nature that principles of navigation, they feel their job is done.
Delacroix did in the port of Dieppe in September 1854.67 The They do the rest with their eyes closed.69

194 DELACROIX
 Cliffs at Etretat, ca. 1849. Gouache over light traces of black chalk on blue
FIG. 81 Waves Breaking against a Cliff, ca. 1849. Watercolor and touches of
FIG. 82
paper, 511/16 x 97/16 in. (14.5 x 24 cm). Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, gouache over graphite on paper, 83/8 x 123/8 in. (21.3 x 31.5 cm). Musée du
Rotterdam (formerly Koenigs Collection) (inv. F II 163 [PK]) Louvre, Paris (RF 4654 recto)

In Delacroix’s imagination, the boat and the sailors fighting the the Second Empire. But Delacroix did not use that motif for
elements have an antiquity, a heroism, a picturesque quality large compositions in oil. His sensibility instead guided him to
(in the original, strong sense of “picturesque”) that lifts them close-­up views that allowed him to depict the waves crashing
above the anecdotal. In that respect, they have a legitimate against the rock in a sublime and Homeric battle. Waves
place in religious history painting. The feeling that the dis- Breaking against a Cliff (fig. 82), though now severely washed
course is disrupted in the last version of Christ Asleep during out by exposure to light, remains a powerful example. The
the Tempest can therefore be attributed to the depiction in the foam is conveyed by highlights in white gouache; the rock,
same space of two complementary but competing heroic fig- evoked solely by a fine interweaving of watercolor, appears
ures: first, the sleeping Jesus, imperturbably trusting in divine strangely fluid and insubstantial in the face of the sea’s power.
protection; and second, the sailors and their ship, negotiating The artist was probably thinking of the manner of his friend
the raging elements with strength and intelligence. The hero- Huet from the Académie Suisse. Huet, whom Delacroix had
ism of faith stands side by side with the heroism of action. known since the early 1820s, would exhibit Breakers at
The discourse, far from being impoverished or dissipated, has Granville Point at the Salon of 1853 (Louvre).
thus been enriched by the moral and pictorial elaborations Delacroix may have also remembered a visit he made on
Delacroix pursued following his seaside observations. October 18, 1849, during a low tide with a high tidal range, to
the caves—one of which was nicknamed “Trou-­au-­Chien” (dog
hole)—at the foot of the cliffs of Cape Fagnet, north of Fécamp:
Rocks and Forest, Epic and Erotic Places
We had some trouble reaching the pillars, which
Parallel to his studies of waves, Delacroix devoted himself to resemble Romanesque architecture and support the
observing rocks. During strolls along the coast of Normandy cliff, leaving an opening underneath.—Then two
in October 1849, he made various study drawings and paint- magnificent amphitheaters with several tiers. . . . In one
ings of the cliffs of Etretat. Handily combining gouache, of them, I believe, is that deep cave, which looks like
watercolor, and chalk to evoke the consistency of the cliff and the retreat of Amphitrite. . . . Beneath the great arch,
its glinting qualities (fig. 81), he anticipated by twenty years the ground seemed to be furrowed by the wheels of
the point of view and layout chosen by Courbet at the end of chariots, like the ruined streets of some ancient city.70

THE GENIUS OF COLOR: 1855–63 195

 CAT. 115 View in the Forest of Sénart, ca. 1849–50 CAT. 145 Shipwreck on the Coast, 1862

As during his trip to Morocco, the artist filtered reality Champrosay. His study of the nearby forest of Sénart (cat. 115)
through ancient history to convey the sensations of the sub- is striking for its powerful contre-­jour effects and its tight
lime that the place elicited in him. The epic wind, produced focus: the dense network of branches invades almost the
by the natural architecture of rocks constantly assailed by the entire painted surface (see fig. 76). In that composition,
sea, naturally found its pictorial formulation in the Shipwreck contemporaneous with ­Camille Corot’s and Karl Bodmer’s
on the Coast (cat. 145), inspired by Giovanni Battista Piranesi’s studies of trees,75 Delacroix had the audacity to place the tree
compositions. Rocks also appear often in scenes of young trunk in the center, forcing the beholder’s gaze toward the
women being ravished or rescued: for example, the scene of a periphery. The study is distinguished by vigorous colors and
woman’s abduction by African pirates, possibly inspired by remarkable effects of transparency. Although the branches
Victor Hugo’s Orientales (fig. 83),71 and mythological scenes of form a firmly drawn and opaque a­ rmature, the foliage is
the deliverance of Andromeda.72 merely suggested by rapid strokes of glaze in various green
Delacroix first treated the subject of Andromeda on and russet tones, which let the white undercoat show through,
canvas under the influence of Rubens.73 At the time, the rock evoking the transparency of the leaves filtering the light.
served only to display to advantage the young woman’s robust The seascape studies, the majority executed during calm
anatomy and oily, glistening flesh tones, enhanced by tawny weather at sunset, served as a prelude to tragic scenes of
glints and muted greens. The composition of the second storms and shipwrecks. Conversely, in Delacroix’s later works
Andromeda, painted for the market between 1850 and 1853,74 the role of the forest is both to protect and to display to
clearly alludes to a painting by Veronese (Musée des Beaux- advantage. The dark green harmony of the forest, heightened
Arts, Rennes). with glints of light and water, cast into relief the richness of
In Delacroix’s pictorial geography, the earthly comple- the flesh tones of Jacob’s powerful muscles as he wrestles the
ment to the sea could only be an equally mysterious and wild angel and of the voluptuous Bathers. The mysterious divine
place: the forest. After the studies in Frépillon (on the edge power of the oak tree shades Jacob wrestling with the angel
of the forest of Montmorency) in the 1830s and in Nohant (see cats. 118–20; fig. 69), while the forests in The Bathers (see
during the following decade, the forest of Sénart offered him fig. 85) and in Marphise (see cat. 127) are complemented by
the best training ground, easily accessible from the house in erotic and feminine imagery.

196 DELACROIX
 African Pirates Abducting a Young Woman on the Mediterranean Coast, 1852. Oil on canvas, 259/16 x 317/8 in. (65 x 81 cm). Musée du
FIG. 83
Louvre, Paris (RF 1965-­9) (J 308)

Against the Grain of Realism? appreciated the austere Château de Dieppe.77 What Delacroix
selected from his visual environment no longer had the aim, as
The important role of the landscape studies, but also the many it had in his early works, of bringing the pathos and bitter
filters the artist inserted between them and his finished com- flavor of the real to his historical compositions. It was now
positions, is thus evident. The only spurs to Delacroix’s imagi- only a catalyst, one that could not aspire to compete or inter-
nation were the natural environments least marked by modern fere with the work of the imagination.
human exploitation: the sea, rocks and cliffs, mountains, Once this is taken into account, Delacroix’s objective
forest. The only buildings that appear belong to remote eras distance from the art of his time seems less surprising. Realist,
and allude to an imaginary feudalism. In his many travels rural, and vernacular tendencies largely prevailed in the
around the French provinces, Delacroix was impervious to practice of landscape painting, with settings that ranged from
modern architecture, but he noticed the ruins of the Château Courbet’s native Doubs to Adolphe-Pierre Leleux’s pictur-
de Turenne, saying that he was struck by them during his esque Brittany to Millet’s Brie. Delacroix left no room for that
stay in Corrèze in 1855.76 On the coast of Normandy in 1854, world in his paintings. At first he looked unkindly on the
he freely expressed his loathing of the Château d’Eu, modern- reality of the peasant world, as indicated by this judgment,
ized by Fontaine for King Louis-Philippe; conversely, he formulated in the early 1840s:

THE GENIUS OF COLOR: 1855–63 197

 The most beautiful provinces of France, once you have Labor was not the subject of any of Delacroix’s paintings, not
seen Holland, for example, seem like sorrowful places even in Morocco: there is hardly more than a blacksmith or a
laid waste by plague and war. The ruined aspect of our few orange vendors or jewelry salesmen in his repertoire.
villages in Picardy and the Paris region inspires a mortal He also had a bias against the modern urban setting.
sadness, and it seems they must be inhabited only by Delacroix’s moral judgment of that environment was contemp-
the poorest and most unhappy people in the world. tuous, particularly after long visits to the provinces. Having
The horrible clothing of our peasant men and women, returned from Dieppe, he exclaimed: “I find that I dislike
and the tasteless, shapeless rags that cover them, do not Paris as much as ever.”81 Three years later, just back from
give a better impression of their condition.78 Strasbourg, he wrote: “So far, I’ve gone out only once into the
streets of Paris: I was horrified by the faces of all those schem-
In his mature years, however, he came to appreciate the ers and prostitutes.”82 He denigrated the very thing that the
authenticity of the rural world, as he took stock of the artifici- painters of modern life would make their subject a decade
ality of the zone where city and country met. At the home of later, for example, the cafés on the grands boulevards: “Lazily,
his cousins in Argonne in 1862, he confided to the duchesse and with a kind of philosophical pleasure, I enjoyed watching
Colonna: “I take delight in everything I see, I’m really in the the life of the sordid little place, the men playing dominoes
country here. Champrosay is a village straight out of comic and all the vulgar details of that crowd of automatons, the
opera: all you see are stylish people or peasants who look like smokers, beer drinkers, and waiters.”83 Composing the entry
they have groomed themselves backstage. Nature itself seems “Flesh color” for his dictionary, he bypassed the subject that
to be wearing makeup. I am offended by all those little houses would give rise to Gustave Caillebotte’s masterpiece twenty
and gardens done up by Parisians.”79 years later (Musée d’Orsay, Paris): “The effect I noticed . . . in
Except for a few picturesque thatched cottages in the man planing wood in the gallery opposite my window:
Normandy, sketched when he was young, even in the copious how strongly colored the half-­tints of the flesh were compared
notebooks of drawings Delacroix shows no artistic interest in with lifeless objects.”84 Delacroix’s aversion to painting genre
French villages or the figures of agricultural labor. There are scenes, whether taken from French urban or rural life, never
none of the plowmen, sowers, reapers, gleaners, shepherds, diminished. For the entry “Subject” in his dictionary, he
or shepherdesses of which the Barbizon painters were so noted that “modern subjects [are] difficult to treat, given the
fond. Delacroix looked askance at Millet, whose art of enno- absence of the nude and the poor quality of the clothing.”85
bling the peasant world he considered artificial and pedantic, His judgments, not only aesthetic but moral, about
a vaguely dangerous undertaking because of the social issues his social and physical environment invite us to interpret his
it raised: resistance to pictorial realism as foremost a movement of
aristocratic affirmation. This tendency can be understood as
They brought Millet to my studio this morning. . . . both a retreat from the economic and social reality of his time
He spoke of Michelangelo and the Bible, which, he and an effort to rise above it. He was reacting against urban
says, is almost the only book he reads. This explains modernity, characterized by immorality and ennui, and against
the rather pretentious look of his peasants. Moreover, the agricultural world, defined by the pursuit of profit through
he is himself a peasant and boasts of it. He truly the exploitation of natural resources.
belongs to the constellation of bearded artists who
made the revolution of 1848 or encouraged it, think-
ing, apparently, that it would bring equality of talent The Fête Galante and the Chivalric Romance:
as well as equality of wealth. But Millet himself seems A Space for Aristocratic Freedom
to me to be above this level, and the small number
of rather similar paintings by him that I have seen In his mature years, Delacroix developed a profound affinity
show a deep though pretentious feeling struggling to with the aristocratic ethos in his choice of reading material,
reveal itself through an execution that is either dry the new subjects of his paintings, his moral and social ideas,
or confused.80 and even, episodically, his way of life.86

198 DELACROIX
 That affinity took shape, first, in his growing interest in deeply admired him for the courage of his convictions.
the Renaissance literature of chivalry. The first references to Beginning in 1848, Berryer was also the leader of the royalist
Ludovico Ariosto and Torquato Tasso appeared in his Journal and legitimist party. A connoisseur of music and literature
in 1824, but he began to write down the subjects drawn from who was elected to the Académie Française in 1854, he hosted
their works only in the late 1840s. Delacroix was probably a salon in both Paris and Augerville, welcoming the best
spurred on by the illustrated editions published in Paris in the singers, composers, artists, and writers of the time. In
mid-­nineteenth century such as the publisher Mallet’s 1841 Augerville, the guests, selected from the aristocracy of talent
Jérusalem délivrée. In 1845 Delécluze published an encyclope- as well as that of birth, were received sumptuously by a gentle-
dic work titled Roland, ou la chevalerie. In 1840 the publisher man farmer who was pleased to have them savor the aroma of
and bookseller Ruel Aîné brought out an edition of Ariosto’s the ancien régime.
Orlando furioso in the translation by the comte de Tressan,
richly illustrated with ninety engravings after drawings by Karl It is a visit arranged by him, full of the old things I am
Girardet. On reading these works, Delacroix began to look so fond of. I know nothing more enchanting than an
closely at the paintings, both earlier ones and those of his own old country house. In towns, people have lost touch
time, related to the literary world. In 1849, returning from a with the old-­fashioned way of living, but here, old
visit to the Louvre and probably inspired by the love story of portraits, old paneling, turrets, pointed roofs, every-
Rinaldo and Armida—as painted by François Boucher, thing, even the very smell of the old house, warms the
Domenichino, or Anthony Van Dyck—he wrote down sub- heart and imagination. I found some old prints tucked
jects drawn from Jérusalem délivrée and encouraged himself to away that used to amuse us when we were children;
reread the book.87 Two series of subjects were also recorded they must have been new then.90
in 1858 and 1860.88
These books probably reminded Delacroix of the gothic Charmed by the social and aesthetic atmosphere of the locale,
romances he had read in his youth, but devoid of the terror its poetry and harmony, Delacroix allowed himself to imagine
that had characterized them. Tasso’s and Ariosto’s romances that he was experiencing a bucolic, aristocratic, and self-­
combined the breathlessness of the romance of adventure sufficient ideal, based on a sense of intimacy between the lord
with the chivalrous ideal of the medieval courtly romance (to and his peasants in an idyllic community.
which they were beholden), alongside a whiff of modernity The pleasures of conversation were not devoid of small
provided by Renaissance humanism: libertine eroticism, talk. Delacroix evoked in a humorous vein the little comedies
burlesque comedy, a complicity between the narrator and the of desire played out between him and the wealthy Hermance
reader. Castles, gardens, mountains, seas, and forests are the Marchoux, comtesse de Caen.91 With a rare sense of delight,
setting where a mischievous, spirited, and magnificent epic Delacroix depicted an eighteenth-­century world of the fête
poem unfolds, in contrast to the prosaic realism of cities and galante, where reality is reenchanted and conforms to the
farms, the locales for picaresque romances and modern social compositions of Watteau.92 The imaginary world of chivalric
novels. Tasso’s and Ariosto’s romances thus offered a sense of romances blended with that of the gallant eighteenth century:
time and place that provided the nineteenth-­century reader such was the aesthetic and literary atmosphere that Delacroix
the illusion of a simple and enchanted world where aristo- enjoyed from 1850 on. That world gave rise to a proliferation
cratic freedom could thrive in its absolute form and where of scenes of deliverance, taken from Orlando furioso (Roger
erotic fantasies could be satisfied. Freeing Angelica, Angelica and the Wounded Medor), Jérusalem
At annual gatherings he greatly enjoyed, Delacroix délivrée (Clorinda Frees Olindo and Sophronia), and Amadis de
thought that this ideal was within his grasp. From 1854 to 1862, Gaule (see cat. 143), as well as from the Golden Legend (Saint
the painter was invited every spring or fall to the Château George Killing the Dragon) and Ovid’s Metamorphoses (Perseus
d’Augerville, a vast seventeenth-­century residence renovated and Andromeda). All feature desirable female nudes offered up
at great expense by Antoine Pierre Berryer, a distant cousin to an ambiguous hero.
on his father’s side.89 As a lawyer, Berryer defended the great One of the most spectacular examples dates to 1852:
generals of the Empire during the Restoration, and Delacroix Marphise (cat. 127). Taken from canto 20 of Ariosto’s Orlando

THE GENIUS OF COLOR: 1855–63 199

 CAT. 127 Marphise, 1852

furioso, the episode is typical of the author’s deliciously biting to a confrontation that turns to Pinabello’s disadvantage.
humor in that it reverses all the chivalric codes. The valiant Delacroix had taken note of the episode about 1825–30,93
knight Marphise (a woman in disguise) has generously and it is likely that the new Ruel edition of Orlando in 1850
allowed Gabrina to ride behind him on his horse. Gabrina is prompted him to reread the text and savor the moment imme-
not a beautiful maiden but an ugly old woman, who asked for diately following the confrontation. He had previously
Marphise’s help in crossing a ford. By chance they come explored it in a few watercolor drawings but never in paint.
across the proud knight Pinabello, accompanied by a pretty Once Pinabello is thrown from his horse, the impertinent
young woman, elegant but arrogant. The taunts fly, leading beauty accompanying him is punished for her pridefulness.

200 DELACROIX
Ariosto, without describing the scene in detail, recounts that shadow, or rendered in receding three-­quarter profile, than
Marphise forces her to exchange her rich attire for Gabrina’s the harmonic contrast, combined with the choreography of
rags before continuing on his way. Delacroix, a connoisseur of the bodies.
Ariosto’s humor and erotics, filled in the blank left by the Delacroix planned to paint a similar scene: it was never
writer and imagined a striptease in the middle of the forest. realized but is known through a drawing of 1853 that provides
At the heart of the composition, constructed in slightly a glimpse of its composition.98 In the heart of the forest, two
curvilinear perspective in the manner of the Flemish primi- knights in armor turn away from nude bathers. As indicated
tives, is the opposition between the fully armed lady knight by the annotations, the subject corresponds to canto 15 of
and the defenseless beauty. Delacroix seems to have relied on Tasso’s Jérusalem délivrée, when the knights Ubaldo and the
Flemish references for both figures. Sara Lichtenstein, follow- Dane, approaching Armida’s enchanted palace, discover a
ing René Huyghe, has rightly linked the composition and the delicious spring:
figure of Marphise to Van Dyck’s Saint Martin Dividing His
Cloak.94 Delacroix possessed a copy of it, painted by O’er-­arch’d by trees that lent perpetual shade,
Gericault, and therefore had before his eyes the powerful But still so limpid, that its waters show
harmonies of red and white that frame the main character’s Whate’er of beauty lies conceal’d below;
resplendent armor. That reprise is a parody, because the act of While rising high the tempting stream beside,
generosity has been replaced by a taking by force. The young The grass-­clad turf a soft, fresh couch supplied.
woman, her back bare, may be a quotation of Rubens’s There, on the bank, they found a costly board,
Judgment of Paris (1632–35; National Gallery, London).95 The With viands rare, in rich abundance stor’d
goddess Juno has a similar hairstyle in that painting, and she is And wantoning amid the crystal flood,
wrapped in a sumptuous purple cloak and a piece of white Two prattling maids their frolic play pursued.99
cloth, a peacock walking at her feet.96 Or perhaps Delacroix
simply adapted to a vertical format the pose and flesh tones of The author is describing the erotic ballet of the two captivat-
his own Study of a Woman Viewed from Behind, etched in 1833 ing nymphs, from whom the knights, albeit tempted, conceal
(fig. 84). The accentuated flochetage of the painted nude may
have been inspired by the crisscrossing of small ink strokes
that model the flesh tones in the etching. Delacroix felt a
legitimate pride in this remarkable bit of painting and wrote
down the recipe:

The underpainting for the Impertinent Woman was made

with a very thick impasto and in a very warm and above
all, a very red tint. On this [I] laid a glaze of terre verte
with perhaps a little white. This produced the halftone
of iridescent opal-­gray, and over it I simply touched in
the lights with the extremely good tone of Cassel earth,
white, and a little vermilion followed by a few orange
tones, strong in places. All this was still merely an
underpainting, but an exceedingly subtle one.97

The iridescent flesh of the impertinent woman, the sparkling

FIG. 84 Study of a Woman Viewed from Behind, 1833. Etching on chine collé,
texture of the fabrics, and the horse’s silky coat are high-
second state of four, plate 47/16 x 65/16 in. (11.2 x 16.1 cm), chine: 41/2 x
lighted by the green harmony of the forest, like a piece of 67/16 in. (11.4 x 16.4 cm), support sheet 87/8 x 125/16 in. (22.6 x 31.3 cm).
gold jewelry in its setting. What captures the drama of the The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Rogers Fund, 1922
scene is less the faces, which are inscrutable, immersed in (22.60.12) (D-­S 21)

THE GENIUS OF COLOR: 1855–63 201

 The Bathers, 1854. Oil on canvas, 361/4 x 301/2 in. (92.1 x 77.5 cm).
FIG. 85 FIG. 86Gustave Courbet (French, 1819–1877). The Bathers, 1853. Oil on
Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, The Ella Gallup Sumner canvas, 893/8 x 76 in. (227 x 193 cm). Musée Fabre, Montpellier
and Mary Catlin Sumner Collection Fund (1952.300) (J 169) (inv. 868.1.19)

themselves on a magician’s advice. In the margin of the sketch If the plan never came to fruition, it was not for lack of
for the composition, Delacroix indicates all the studies from interest but probably because a commission on a similar sub-
nature he would need: “The pastel done in the Jardin des ject had in the meantime deprived the theme of its originality,
Plantes this spring for the plan[ts] in the water—Also flowers making its execution less urgent. The work in question was
reflecting in the water—Sept. 1853—Trees in bloom—See The Bathers (fig. 85), commissioned in March 1854 by a private
the sketch back view of woman that I etched [in 1833; see collector under restrictive conditions. In addition to the
fig. 84]—Sky [repeated]—flowers.”100 The idea for the sub- dimensions of the canvas, the price, the timetable for delivery,
ject had already been indicated in the Journal under the date and the subject, the patron not only detailed the number of
of June 2, 1849.101 It reappeared on June 28, 1854, when bathers and their different activities and imposed a “chaste
Delacroix finished The Bathers: “Think about asking [Léon] intent, with the figures dressed in draperies around their
Riesener for my study of trees on paper. Borrow . . . studies waists,” but also recommended that the artist seek inspiration
from him of landscape of Frépillon [country residence of the in the painting by “Diaz, The Bathers” (fig. 87).104 Delacroix
Rieseners, near Pontoise] and others, for the freshness of the later wrote that The Bathers was a painting he was not proud
colors. Also of Valmont [Abbey] for the subject of Two Knights of, “having done it under conditions that [did] not please
and Nymphs, from Jerusalem [Delivered].”102 Delacroix men- [him].”105 Although his financial situation would have permit-
tioned it again on January 2, 1855, when he once more indi- ted him to turn it down, he not only agreed to do it but also
cated his intention to use the etching of the reclining female respected the terms of the commission, even going so far as to
nude of 1833.103 pastiche Diaz’s Bathers.

202 DELACROIX
 composition of Diaz’s Bathers (five women and a dog, on
either side of a pond) and improved on his fellow painter by
locating the scene in a much more luxurious rocaille setting.
The Persian carpet, the tableware, and the many Oriental
jewels evoke Charles Amédée Van Loo’s Sultan Served by Her
Eunuchs, while a statue adopting the Venus Pudica pose can be
seen in the background. That motif is characteristic of the
fêtes galantes by Watteau and his followers, who liked to
display their wit by creating a formal interplay between the
idleness of the characters and the animation of the sculptures.
With these Bathers, Delacroix also seized the opportu-
nity to position himself resolutely in the camp opposing
Courbet, whose Bathers (fig. 86) had caused a stir at the Salon
the previous year. Delacroix had seen the painting as it was
developing, during a visit to Courbet’s studio before the
exhibition opened:

I was amazed at the strength and relief of his principal

painting, but what a painting! What a subject! The
vulgarity of the forms is nothing; it’s the vulgarity and
futility of the idea that are abominable! . . . There
seems to be some exchange of thought between the
two figures, but it is quite unintelligible. The landscape
FIG. 87E. Esbens, after Narcisse-­Virgile Diaz de la Peña (French, 1808–
is extraordinarily vigorous, but Courbet has merely
1876). Bathers, published in L’artiste, series 5, vol. 9 (November 1, 1852)
enlarged a study that can be seen near his canvas. It
seems evident that the figures were added later, with
no connection to their surroundings. This raises the
Delacroix liked Diaz, whom he had known since at least question of harmony between the accessories and the
the early 1840s.106 In 1853 he declared that he had even principal object, a harmony lacking in the majority of
praised “the forest painting of Diaz.”107 For about a decade the great painters.108
Diaz had specialized in small paintings depicting voluptuous
nymphs and bathers from bygone times, often accompanied This is a decisive passage from the Journal that reveals
by children, in verdant undergrowth derived from his studies what Delacroix understood realism to be, in a more sponta-
done in the forest of Fontainebleau. He thus satisfied the new neous and less doctrinaire manner than in his famous entry
vogue for the vernacular modern landscape, enlivened by an in the Dictionary of the Fine Arts, written seven years later
anecdotal narrative and the delights of the nude. That hybrid (“Realism—Realism should be defined as the exact opposite
genre also corresponded to a revival of the fête galante of of art. It is perhaps even more detestable in painting and
eighteenth-­century France, as depicted by Watteau, Nicolas sculpture than in history and the novel”).109 Delacroix experi-
Lancret, and Jean Baptiste Pater. The tone was set by the enced that genre of painting as a veneer (further on, he
major collectors of the time: the duc de Morny, comte used the term “marquetry”110) of raw, unstylized fragments of
Anatole Demidoff, William Wallace, and Doctor Louis La the visible world, superb in their wit and truth, but producing
Caze. The Louvre, through its painting curator, Frédéric no narrative. Courbet did not try to connect the fragments
Villot, a friend of Delacroix’s, contributed to the reassessment logically or to support them with any literary, historical, or
of that genre of painting in 1852, when it acquired Boucher’s moral reference. The beholder of this monumental scene is
Diana Leaving Her Bath. Delacroix faithfully replicated the not provided with a key to decipher the plot or any real-world

THE GENIUS OF COLOR: 1855–63 203

context whatsoever. Delacroix therefore interprets Courbet’s his private conviction that painting did not achieve its full
painting as an unschooled and underhanded art, in which the expression and its meaning unless it was practiced as an art of
misleading transparency of the visible realities ultimately the imagination, an “ingenious artifice.”114 It was likely not by
produces a strange and disagreeable sensation of opacity. That chance that the years 1853–55, when Delacroix was in closest
explains his recurrent sense of a “pointlessness of the idea,” contact with Courbet’s painting, were also those when he set
something that antagonized him. out to define what the imagination is. His major discovery
In 1855, when he visited Courbet’s Pavilion of Realism, was that the imagination has to be linked to the work of mem-
his impression was more favorable. There, he again saw A ory, both the painter’s and the beholder’s. Imagination should
Burial at Ornans and also discovered The Painter’s Studio not be understood as a reflex that embellishes the visible data
(see fig. 119). He did not conceal his admiration for them, in a conventional way or as an automatic repetition of forms
directed primarily at the “superb details” and “the creditably learned by heart: in that respect, Delacroix distinguished it
executed parts,” a judgment that once again concerned the from “style” and “practice.”115 The work of an artist with the
fragmentation that he believed was characteristic of realist gift of imagination is to distill and combine, to sacrifice and
painting. Although he “discovered a masterpiece in [Courbet’s] connect, activities that link everything to the harmony of
rejected painting,”111 he did not explain why it was a master- the painting and the explicit rendering of the narrative it
piece. Symptomatically, Delacroix confined himself to bestow- supports. And that exercise of the imagination is more natural,
ing praise as a fellow practitioner of painting and never liberating, and properly creative because it is based on the
offered an opinion about the idea behind that “real allegory,” freedom of the brushstroke and on memory. In response to
though it is obvious and remarkably complex. Might he have the pointlessness of mechanically imitating reality and the
understood, without admitting it to himself, that he stood sterility of adhering to academic conventions, Delacroix
before a cosmogony of modern art, which mimicked the placed all his trust in memory. It has the advantage of pruning
tradition (especially the layout of the Last Judgment) only to away the useless and emphasizing the essential (defined as
better supplant it? Delacroix, the humanist painter par excel- what is pleasing and expressive), while at the same time being
lence, may have taken the measure of everything that sepa- governed by a personal, singular, and inimitable principle.
rated his own notion of originality from that of Courbet, A recollection is the most faithful reflection of its bearer.
whose paintings were not part of a preexisting mythological, “I firmly believe that we always mingle something of ourselves
artistic, and literary continuum but claimed to be a founding in the emotions that seem to arise out of objects that impress
myth in and of themselves. Ultimately, however, the two us. And I think it probable that these works delight me so
extremes came together and mirrored each other: the proud much only because they echo feelings that are also my own.
Courbet, with his “Assyrian” beard,112 re-­creating the world And since they give me the same degree of pleasure even
and painting through pigments spread in manly fashion with a though they are dissimilar, the source of the kind of effect
knife, styled himself the brother of King Sardanapalus, who, in they produce lies within myself.”116
an orgy of brushwork, contemplated the destruction of his city Step by step, Delacroix became aware of what recollec-
and of art. Delacroix, too, had painted a scandalous studio tion added to creativity. First, he came to realize that the
picture, assembling on an enormous surface all the fantasies of places he liked to visit were all associated with childhood
flesh and paint that inhabited his crucible (real or metaphori- memories. He appreciated the particular density that the
cal), before provoking the public by deliberately throwing the passage of time and a warmth of feelings gave to certain
painting in its face.113 landscapes: the Valmont Abbey in the Pays de Caux, near
the home of his cousin Bornot; the Château de Croze in the
Causses du Quercy, where his Verninac cousins lived; or
Memory to the Rescue of Painting Argonne, the birthplace of the Delacroix family, though he
did not visit it until 1856.117 The first sensation he felt was a
Delacroix’s paradoxical experience of looking at Courbet’s painful nostalgia. In September 1838, for example, Valmont
paintings—he saw both a fascinating landscape and an enig- reminded him of his vacations with his mother and sister in
matic opacity—probably had the advantage of strengthening the summer of 1813:

204 DELACROIX
 This place is a former abbey of rich monks, with a I set up in a field that had just been harvested, to have
superb church in ruins and ravishing waters and gar- a view of the castle and the surrounding countryside—
dens. It makes me a little sad. You find yourself terribly not because it was particularly interesting, but to
defenseless against a host of emotions, which the preserve the memory of this exquisite moment. The
surrounding noise helps you to combat in Paris. There scent of the fields and the newly cut wheat, the bird-
are even ghosts in the garden, everyone believes in song, the purity of the air, put me into one of those
them; but the actual ghosts are too real for me, though moods when I can remember nothing but the days
they are in my imagination. These are dear ghosts in when I was young and my soul was easily stirred by
petticoats, whom I expect at any moment to see in the such delicious sensations. I think that nowadays I can
recesses of dark avenues and along rushing streams almost coax myself into being happy by remembering
that are worthy of Ariosto’s copses. Never was a place how happy I used to be in similar circumstances.121
more likely to pierce you with stings that don’t kill
but which aggrieve.118 In 1855, the artist’s visit to the Château de Croze with his
relatives, the Verninac family, elicited particularly rich emo-
Seven years after his brother Charles Henry’s death, tions. His sister Henriette de Verninac and nephew Charles
which left him the sole survivor of his family, Delacroix had de Verninac had died more than twenty years before:
the Proustian experience of a well-­being produced by invol-
untary memory. That memory, conveyed by the senses, How to describe what I find charming about this place?
revived the dead with an incomparable intensity and clarity. It is a mixture of all the sensations that are lovely and
The sea spray inhaled during his first solo stay in Dieppe, pleasant to our hearts and imaginations. It makes me
in 1852, returned him to his adolescence in Valmont, a few think of those places where I had so much quiet happi-
miles farther south and four decades earlier. Returning from a ness when I was young; I think of old friends as well, of
walk on the beach, he wrote: “I think the greatest appeal of my brother, dear Charles, and of my sister. Alone as I
things we enjoy lies in the memories they awaken in the heart am at present, it seemed to me, in this place so near the
or mind, but especially in the heart. . . . Especially at low tide, south, that I was once more with those dear ones in
the smell of the sea—which is perhaps its keenest charm— Touraine, in Charente, places that are so lovely to me,
has an almost incredible power to take me back among those so dear to my heart.122
beloved people and those precious times that are gone for-
ever.”119 He revisited that charm a year later, this time under Alongside these experiences sparked by his travels,
poplars in Champrosay: Delacroix felt the positive virtues of the passage of time simply
by assembling his memories of his trip to Morocco ten years
These poplars, and especially the poplars of Holland later, with the intent of writing an article. He took his time
turning yellow in the autumn, have an inexpressible in a long preamble, where he pondered the best form to
charm for me. I lay down on the ground to see them give to a travel narrative, one that would satisfy both readers,
silhouetted against the blue sky with their leaves eager for an experience of exoticism and picturesque anec-
blowing off in the wind and falling all about me. Once dotes, and the author himself: “Is it possible to recount to
again, the pleasure they gave me lay in my memories, one’s own satisfaction the various events and emotions experi-
in the recollection of seeing such things at a time enced on a journey? Satisfying others, painting for them, is
when I was surrounded by the people I loved. This a matter of talent; but will someone who paints, whatever
feeling accompanies all our pleasure in the spectacle of talent he may have, rediscover in his own painting the precise
nature; I felt it last year in Dieppe when I was looking lines and delicate nuances of his impressions?”123 He opted
at the sea.120 to abandon any painstaking accuracy: “Describing is not
painting. A particular phrase by a great master in the art of
Also in Dieppe, he strolled the hills to draw the castle writing, a choice, a consonance of syllables, creates a totality,
and the hinterland: a tableau in the mind. The first effect of a long description is

THE GENIUS OF COLOR: 1855–63 205

weariness and certainly confusion. Description is the plague parallels with his artistic practice. He returned first to
of literature.”124 The liberating and selective virtue of memory the liberation that came from distancing himself from the
became clear: living model. It was October 1853, and Delacroix was in
Champrosay:
That journey is already long [eleven years] past. The
very thing that would have prevented me from writing Jean-­Jacques [Rousseau] was right when he said that
about it a few years ago is precisely what gives me the the joys of liberty are best described from a prison
courage to do so today. I now see as if through a cloud cell, and that the way to paint a fine landscape is to
a host of circumstances that once caught my attention. live in a stuffy town where one’s only glimpse of the
Many of them appear like so many dreams. Great quanti- sky is through an attic window above the chimneypots.
ties of notes taken on the fly appear unintelligible. By When a landscape is in front of my eyes and I am
contrast, I see clearly in my imagination all the things surrounded by trees and pleasant places, my own
that were not necessary to write down, the only things, landscape becomes heavy, overworked, perhaps truer
perhaps, that deserve to be preserved in memory.125 in its details but out of harmony with the subject.127

Delacroix was discovering the paradox of material and imma- Memory has the property of establishing an arbitrary relation
terial relationships to the past: the truth of a past experience is of dependency—but one that becomes almost n ­ ecessary—
revealed more easily by the virtual sensations of memory than between an entity and the environment in which it appeared
by concrete notes in a travel log. the last time, especially when both have vanished. The unity
That exercise may have awakened Delacroix’s desire to of the painting, the harmonious connection between the
theorize the effect of time. An isolated sheet, which Michèle figures and the ground, had become an obsession for
Hannoosh proposes to date to 1843, contains a reflection on Delacroix. The connection formed naturally and powerfully
the coloring that emotional memory gives to facts: through the work of memory proved invaluable to him. The
unifying property of memory may have given him greater
An event is nothing, because it passes away. Only the insight into the second version of The Education of the Virgin,
idea of it remains. And really, it does not even exist in on which he was then working.
the idea, because the event gives the idea a certain The first version had been painted in Nohant in 1842.
coloring, imagines it by coloring it in its own way, in Delacroix had been touched by a reading lesson given under
accordance with the mood of the moment. Why is the the trees by the farmwife of Nohant to her daughter. He
recollection of past pleasures infinitely sharper than observed it in secret during a walk and transposed the scene
lived experience? Why does the mind linger with such into a religious context (fig. 88).128 Eleven years later,
indulgence on places we will never see again, places Delacroix painted a new version (fig. 89), the genesis of
where we experienced happiness? Why does . . . even which is mentioned in the Journal:
the memory of the friends we miss enhance them once
we have lost them? What happens in the mind when it During the day, worked . . . on the little Saint Anne.
remembers the emotions of the heart is also what Repainting the background from the trees I drew two
happens when the creative faculty seizes hold of or three days ago, on the edge of the forest near
thought to animate the real world and draw from it Draveil, has changed the whole painting. This little
imaginary pictures. The mind composes, which is to piece of nature, taken from life, fits in with the rest and
say, it idealizes and chooses. Thought cannot occur has given it character. In the same way, for the figures, I
without idealization.126 took up the sketches I did from life in Nohant for the
painting of Mme Sand. I have gained in freshness and
In the end, it was the alchemy of the Journal, resumed in firmness through simplicity.—Such is the effect that
1847, that allowed Delacroix to pursue his reflections. His must be obtained through the use of the model and of
recurrent personal experiences prompted him to draw nature in general.129

206 DELACROIX
 FIG. 88 The Education of the Virgin, 1842. Oil on canvas, 373/8 x 493/16 in. (95 x 125 cm). Musée National Eugène-­Delacroix,
Paris (inv. MD 2003-­8) (J 426)

A few lines later, the artist congratulated himself for having

abandoned studies from the living model: “It is therefore far
more important for an artist to come near to the ideal which
he carries in his mind, and which is characteristic of him, than
to be content with recording, however strongly, the fleeting
ideal that nature may offer.”130
It is evident at first glance that Delacroix accentuated the
expressiveness of the two women, contrasting the vigor of Saint
Anne (reminiscent of women he observed in Morocco, and
whose costume evokes Jewish women of Algiers) and the pale
fragility of Mary (a memory of Faust’s Marguerite?). But it is
hardly clear what “character” he gave the scene, placed in the
center of an English garden with its requisite accessories. The
spaniel, the cluster of ferns behind the bench, and the wicker
basket filled with roses evoke the horticulture of Berry more
than the ancient Holy Land. Delacroix had not stayed in Nohant
since 1846; Sand’s separation from Frédéric Chopin, followed
by the composer’s death, pushed those memories back to a FIG. 89The Education of the Virgin, 1853. Oil on canvas, 181/8 x 217/8 in. (46 x
bygone time. In rediscovering the sketches of Saint Anne in 55.5 cm). The National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo (inv. P.1970-­1) (J 461)

THE GENIUS OF COLOR: 1855–63 207

 View of Tangier from the Shore, 1858. Oil on canvas, 3115/16 x 395/16 in. (81.1 x 99.8 cm). Minneapolis Institute of Art, Gift of Mrs. Erasmus C. Lindley
FIG. 90
in memory of her father, James J. Hill (49.4) (J 408)

his studio in 1853, he must have remembered the first painting’s only after I had forgotten the trivial details and remembered
genesis. Are we therefore to imagine that the new version of nothing but the striking and poetic side of the subject. Up to
The Education of the Virgin had its beginnings in the physical that time, I had been haunted by this passion for accuracy that
and emotional environment in which the subject was first con- most people mistake for truth.”131 Delacroix thus established a
ceived and that this environment had attached itself to the motif clear distinction. Exactitude is to be understood as a relation
and slipped in around it? The landscape is no longer simply a of imitation that legitimates the painted work based on its
setting from a plastic standpoint, nor is it merely a contextual- fidelity to appearances in the visible world or to ethnographic
ization required by the needs of history. It also maintains a knowledge of a past or distant world. Truth in art, by contrast,
necessary connection to the subject in the artist’s memory. comes into play only within the autonomous world of the
Delacroix shored up his line of reasoning by returning painted work, without external interference. Delacroix echoed
to the way he had used the unique experience of Morocco: that reflection two years later, after an observation about the
“I began to make something acceptable of my African journey lack of imagination of seascape painters: “It is the exactitude of

208 DELACROIX
the imagination that I demand. . . . Color and form must com- and a harmonic envelope to Moroccan scenes, when the mere
bine to achieve the effect I desire. My kind of accuracy would recollection of them was too insubstantial. Take, for example,
consist . . . of strongly sketching in only the principal objects, a rare case when Delacroix indicated that a phenomenon he
but in such a way as to show their essential functions in rela- had observed in his everyday surroundings was of interest for
tion to the figures. As for the rest, I look for the same qualities a painting. In Dieppe, he said:
in marine paintings as I do in any other kind of subject.”132
To attain the truth of a painting, Delacroix did not trou- I noticed a good subject for a painting: a dinghy bring-
ble himself with ethnographic coherence. In his later compo- ing fish ashore from a small boat that could be seen in
sitions, therefore, he freely combined French and Moroccan the distance. The men [were] carried to land on the
memories. The idealized memories of Morocco allowed him shoulders of others who had waded into the water to
to ennoble a trivial scene he had seen in France. Conversely, bring in baskets of fish to a group of women. The
the studies from life done in France gave a particular savor dinghy [was] dragged up on to the beach by two or

Horses Coming Out of the Sea, 1858–60. Oil on canvas, 201/4 x 241/4 in. (51.4 x 61.6 cm). The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.
FIG. 91
Acquired 1945 (J 414)

THE GENIUS OF COLOR: 1855–63 209

 Arabs Skirmishing in the Mountains, 1863. Oil on canvas, 367/16 x 295/16 in. (92.5 x 74.5 cm). National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
FIG. 92
Chester Dale Fund (1966.12.1) (J 419)

210 DELACROIX
 FIG. 93 An Arab Camp at Night, 1863. Oil on canvas, 215/8 x 259/16 in. (55 x 65 cm). Szépművészeti Múzeum, Budapest
(inv. 72.7.B) (J 418)

three little ship’s boys and was then launched again We see clearly the scope of the delocalization in space
with oars upright, the morning sun streaming down on and time that Delacroix applied to a motif taken from life to
the whole scene.133 make it worthy of a painting, and the extent to which he
broadened the frame, which led him to convert into a land-
In his mind, that “pretty subject” was only a starting point. scape what was originally the subject of a genre painting.134
The painter seems to have begun to elaborate a composition That expansion of the motif may have come about through an
based on it a few years later (fig. 90), but at the cost of association of images favored by memory: superimposed on
numerous adjustments that make the original unrecognizable. the fortified castle of Dieppe, framed by cliffs, is the analo-
The fishermen and the baskets of fish are forgotten: all that gous image of the crenellated ramparts of Tangier towering
remains is the boat pushed by young men in Arab costume. over the rocks. Horses Coming Out of the Sea (fig. 91) follows a
The Dieppe beach is metamorphosed into a steep bank mod- similar procedure, but in the opposite direction. The motif is
eled by imposing rocks (inspired by the rocky coast of a memory of the journey from Tangier to Meknes, when the
Normandy or the grounds of Augerville). A path leads the artist saw two horses crossing the Sebou River or fighting in
beholder’s eye to a mountaintop, crowned with ramparts the water. Yet the painting is set on the beach of Dieppe, as
enclosing a Moroccan city—a memory of Tangier. indicated by the tip of a washed-­up boat in the foreground,

THE GENIUS OF COLOR: 1855–63 211

 CAT. 144 Arab Horses Fighting in a Stable, 1860

taken directly from his oil study of the sea there (see cat. 128). characteristics, the “sleeves of the wide shirts, down to the
Recognizable in the background is a view of the verdant coast elbows.” This comment is accompanied by a sketch—very
of the Pays de Caux, between Dieppe and Fécamp. The artist rare in the Journal—immediately followed by an abrupt asso­
noted in his Journal on March 10, 1858, that he was working ciation of images: “the ease of movement of the Jewish
on a “view of Dieppe with the man coming out of the sea with women of Tangier.”136 It is also probable that the very steep
the two horses.”135 and green setting of Arabs Skirmishing in the Mountains
If we are to believe an incidental remark Delacroix made (fig. 92) was more indebted to the artist’s journey in the
in Le Tréport in 1854, that bridge of the imagination, which Pyrénées (1845) and the area around the Château de Turenne
freely connected the coast of Normandy to the Moroccan in Corrèze (1855) than to Morocco itself. The action was
coast in his mental geography, apparently did not end with the inspired as much by the capture of fortresses in the novels of
landscape. Observing the costume of the women of Le Tréport, Scott or in Ariosto as by the few skirmishes Delacroix
which he found “charming,” he detailed, among other observed during the trip from Tangier to Meknes. An Arab

212 DELACROIX
 FIG. 94 Guard-­Room at Meknes, 1846. Oil on canvas, 2513/16 x 217/16 in. (65.5 x 54.5 cm). Von der Heydt
Museum, Wuppertal (inv. G 1297) (J 374)

Camp at Night (fig. 93) displays few of the picturesque ele- Morocco sketchbooks. Twenty-­eight years later, the actual
ments noted in the sketchbooks, such as the tents, which outdoor setting where this event took place was replaced by
Delacroix relegated to the darkness in the middle ground to an indoor one, the same one he devised for an earlier picture,
the left. The scene focuses on the stories favored at the bivouac Guard-­Room at Meknes (fig. 94).
around the fire. Its brightness rivals that of the moon, the light His reflections continued in 1854, again owing to the
of which passes through bands of clouds. That phenomenon calm of Champrosay. A notation written the morning of
was based on observations of the night sky that Delacroix had April 28, 1854, after a moment of synesthetic grace as he was
made in Champrosay or on stage sets he had seen at the opera.137 falling asleep, proved decisive:
The liberating effect of memory on the artist took yet
another path in the form of Arab Horses Fighting in a Stable As I awakened [in Champrosay], my thoughts turned
(cat. 144), which depicts a fight to the death between two to pleasant and sweet moments in my memory and my
stallions, the recollection of an actual event described in his heart, moments I spent near my good aunt [Riesener]

THE GENIUS OF COLOR: 1855–63 213

 in the countryside [of Frépillon near Pontoise]. . . . But, though this may seem strange, most people are without
While reflecting on the freshness of memories and on it.”140 He returned again to the question a few pages later:
their power to lend enchantment to the distant past, I “The principal source of interest [in the artwork] comes
have been marveling at the way in which our minds from the soul, and it goes irresistibly to the beholder’s soul.
involuntarily suppress and brush aside anything that Not that every interesting work strikes equally every beholder
spoiled the charm of those happy moments when we simply because he is supposed to have a soul: only a subject
were actually living them. I have been comparing this endowed with sensibility and imagination can be moved.
kind of idealization, for such it is, with the effect that These two faculties are as indispensable to the beholder as
great works of art have on the imagination. A great to the artist, though to different degrees.”141 That discriminat-
painter concentrates interest by suppressing details that ing, even aristocratic definition of a public endowed with
are useless, offensive, or foolish. His mighty hand imaginative capacities on the same level as the artist’s fore-
orders and prescribes, adding to or taking away from shadowed Delacroix’s painful experience at the Salon of
the objects in his paintings and treating them as his 1859 two years later. In exhibiting such unusual and demand-
own creatures. He ranges freely throughout his king- ing art to masses largely sensitized to the protorealist aesthetic
dom and gives you a feast of his own choosing. With a of contemporary painting and photography, he necessarily
second-­rate artist, you feel he is master of nothing; he exposed himself to the risk that his paintings would be
wields no authority over his accumulation of borrowed widely misunderstood.
materials. Indeed, what possible order could he estab- Delacroix contrasted the laborious and cumulative pro-
lish in a work where everything dominates him? All he cess of realism, which leads only to vain and “indiscreet abun-
can do is invent timidly and copy slavishly. Instead of dance,”142 to the force of memory, which purifies, enchants,
suppressing the uglier aspects, as the imagination does, combines, reconnects, and powerfully reorganizes the visible
he gives them equal if not greater importance by the data. He willingly accepted the artifice of that mode of cre-
slavishness of his imitation.138 ation: “Cold precision is not art; skillful invention, when it is
pleasing or when it is expressive, is art itself. The so-called
Having returned to Champrosay six months later, conscientiousness of the majority of painters is nothing but a
Delacroix completed his thought, this time adopting the laboriously rendered perfection resulting in an art of the
beholder’s point of view: “Painters who simply reproduce boring.”143 In that trust in memory as the essential driving
their studies never give the beholder a living sense of nature. force of his artistic activity at the end of his life, Delacroix
The beholder is moved because he sees nature through the maintained a profound affinity with Corot, one final indication
eye of his memory while he looks at your painting. Your of the parallelism of their careers. The two artists belonged to
painting must already be beautified, idealized, if you are not the same generation (Corot was two years older), one originally
to seem inferior to the conception of nature formed by the trained in the Neoclassical craft of painting; both emancipated
ideal, which memory thrusts willy-­nilly into all our recollec- themselves from that training at a very young age. After many
tions.”139 Although the last part of the sentence seems garbled, years of struggle, they were able to receive public and official
Delacroix was bringing to light the need for a reciprocity of recognition as a result of their sustained and innovative activ-
the imagination—but also the problem it raises—if the artistic ity, but that activity also exposed them to the risk of being left
virtue of the work is to be fully operative. The added value of behind by the realist revolution. Corot and Delacroix there-
the recollection can be appreciated only if the beholder looks fore proposed an art based on the nostalgic and serene remi-
at the painting through a prism similar to the painter’s. If he niscence of an intimate pictorial imagination, constantly
expects from Delacroix’s painting only a mimetic reproduc- reborn in new combinations in the crucible of their studios.
tion, he will necessarily be disappointed. When Delacroix visited Corot in his studio on
It was this sharing of imaginative predispositions that March 14, 1847, Corot, significantly, encouraged him to trust
Delacroix recalled in 1857, when he tried to define the imagi- his instinct, to “let myself go a little and to allow myself to take
nation in his Dictionary: “Imagination.—It is the foremost things as they come.”144 In the 1850s the method shared by
quality of the artist. It is no less necessary to the art lover. . . . Corot and Delacroix, the two living monuments of French

214 DELACROIX
painting, was to set off on an adventure without leaving the
studio, to combine constantly the treasures of their vast mental
and emotional picture libraries. Such healthy work habits
allowed them to continue creating as painters and to cultivate
carefully their uniqueness in a world where the accelerated
production and circulation of images were scrambling all
codes and placing originality in peril.

The New Pantheon of the Old Masters

The distorting filter of personal memory, though it assumed

increasing importance in Delacroix’s art, must not allow us to
forget the persistence of references to the old masters. The
painter implicitly established correspondences among motifs,
subjects, and a certain tradition. We have already seen the
connection between rocks and the scenes of deliverance The Banks of the River Sébou, 1858. Oil on canvas, 191/2 x 233/4 in.
FIG. 95

inspired by Veronese. In the same way, Delacroix wrote, (49.6 x 60.3 cm). Pérez Simón Collection, Mexico (J L169)
returning from a nocturnal stroll in Champrosay: “The sight
of the stars shining through the trees gave me the idea to do a
painting that would show this poetic effect, which is difficult old. I confess I had no appreciation for him during the time
to render in painting because of the darkness of the whole: when I greatly admired Michelangelo and Lord Byron.”147
Flight into Egypt. Saint Joseph leading the donkey and illumi- Three years later, in a plan for a project “In Praise of
nating a small ford with a lantern; that weak light would suffice Titian,” Delacroix argued that the Venetian master “can be
for the contrast.”145 For Delacroix, then, the motif of the starry considered the creator of landscape painting. He brought
night was not to be rendered for its own sake; rather, it would to it the same breadth of treatment that he gave to the render-
serve as a framework for a subject drawn from the Gospels, in ing of figures and draperies.—We stand amazed at the
a layout that, according to Delacroix’s cursory description, was power and fertility, the universality of those men of the six-
developed in the late sixteenth century by Adam Elsheimer.146 teenth century.”148 A few days later he added:
His relationship to the masters is subject to intriguing
lines of inquiry. Rubens still held a central place in his pan- If we lived to be a hundred and twenty, we should end
theon, but he was reclassified in response to Delacroix’s by preferring Titian above everyone. He is not a young
new concerns in the last decade of his life. The painter, leav- man’s painter. He is the least mannered and therefore
ing aside somewhat the quest for the sublime, pathos, and the the most varied of artists. . . . Titian originated that
rendering of flesh, looked more critically at Michelangelo breadth of handling that broke sharply away from the
and Rubens. Conversely, his admiration grew for Titian, dryness of his predecessors and is the very perfection
Veronese, and Rembrandt, three painters renowned for their of painting. . . . This breadth of Titian’s is the final aim
attention to the unity and harmony of compositions, a constant of painting and is as far removed from the dryness of
concern of Delacroix’s in his final years. He found the broad the primitives as from the monstrous abuse of touch
strokes of these painters akin to his own. When his friend and the soft slickness of painters in decadent periods.149
Paul Chenavard praised engravings after Michelangelo’s Last
Judgment, Delacroix voiced his disagreement: “I see only Delacroix placed Veronese alongside Titian: “There is one
striking details, details that strike like a punch; but the unity, man who produces brightness without violent contrasts, who
the interest, the continuity of it all is absent. . . . Titian—now produces the open air, which we have repeatedly been told is
there is a man made to be enjoyed by those who are growing impossible: Paul Veronese. In my opinion, he is probably the

THE GENIUS OF COLOR: 1855–63 215

 Paul Bril (Netherlandish, 1553/54–1626).
FIG. 96
Diana Discovering Callisto’s Pregnancy, 1615–20.
Oil on canvas, 633/8 x 811/8 in. (161 x 206 cm).
Musée du Louvre, Paris (207)

only one who captured the full secret of nature.”150 These effect that could be drawn from it.” Even Rubens was
words were written in April 1859, a few weeks before reproached for not establishing a close enough relationship
Delacroix exhibited Ovid among the Scythians (see cat. 142), its between his figures and the landscape. Conversely, “the
emerald and turquoise harmony similar to that of the final landscapes of Titian, Rembrandt, and Poussin are generally in
compositions of the Venetian master. harmony with the figures.—In Rembrandt—and this is perfec-
The influence also comes through in a work exhibited tion itself—the background and figures are one. The interest
under the title The Banks of the River Sebou (Kingdom of is everywhere, nothing is separate. It is like some lovely natu-
Morocco) at the Salon of 1859 (fig. 95).151 The landscape paint- ral scene where everything combines to please.”154 “It is really
ing was linked to an episode that occurred during the expedi- not until Rembrandt that you see the beginning of that har-
tion between Tangier and Meknes in 1832.152 The naïveté of mony between the details and the principal subject, which I
the landscape hardly fooled the critics. Mathilde Stevens consider to be one of the most important elements, if not the
made fun of that “Norman Africa,” while Mantz was reminded most important element, in a painting.”155
of the landscape paintings of Rubens.153 Yet it seems the con- His admiration for these painters was directed primarily
junction between the Flemish and the Italian traditions of at their mastery of harmony in complex compositions. They
painting the landscape at the dawn of the seventeenth century were able, smoothly and easily, to assemble and articulate in
served as Delacroix’s model. At the Louvre, he was able to the space of a single landscape a complex, poetic, and univer-
see the landscapes of Domenichino and Paul Bril. In addition sal discourse. They thus offered a response to Delacroix’s
to the motif of bathers in the foreground, Bril’s Diana principal aesthetic concern in his final years. He believed that,
Discovering Callisto’s Pregnancy (fig. 96) displays unusual in the evolution of the painting of his time, the excesses of
similarities to Banks of the River Sebou, in both its composition realism and eclecticism led to fragmentation, dissonance, and
and its color scheme. the absence of meaning. Moreover, he disapproved of the
In the entry he planned for the Dictionary of the Fine Arts unevenness of his own early works and wished to increase the
“on Landscape, as accompaniment to the subjects,” Delacroix unity of his painting, even while continuing to treat complex
noted “the ignorance of almost all the great masters of the historical and philosophical subjects.

216 DELACROIX
FIG. 97Orpheus Civilizes the Greeks and Teaches Them the Arts of Peace, 1845–47. Oil and wax on plaster, 24 ft. 13/8 in. x 36 ft. 1/4 in. (7.3 x 11 m).
Half-­dome, Deputies’ Library, Assemblée Nationale (Palais Bourbon), Paris (J 540)

Painting as Microcosm: The Painter “Moves about His apses for the library of the Palais Bourbon, would come
Domain and Gives You a Feast to His Own Liking” together in a single space in the cupola of the library of the
Palais du Luxembourg (see fig. 40). At the time, he experi-
In the first half of the nineteenth century, painting had a pro- enced and confronted the tensions between the encyclopedic
nounced tendency to embrace an encyclopedic ambition. The ambition of the discourse and the necessary unity of the image.
development of the history of the arts, the sciences, and philos- Villot recounted the genesis of the iconographic program:
ophy fostered a progressive, global, and hierarchical vision of
civilization. It also encouraged increasingly ambitious efforts The evening when he came to share with us the
to synthesize, by means of the image, the most productive and news [of receiving the commission], he found me
beneficial things European culture had created for itself and for reading Dante’s Inferno, and he had hardly finished his
the rest of humanity. In the wake of Ingres’s Apotheosis of Homer invariable question in such cases—What ought to be
(1827; Musée du Louvre), plans were elaborated for Panthéons put there?—than I told him: ‘I have just the thing: two
(by Delaroche) and Palingeneses (by Chenavard), facilitated by admirable subjects that naturally go hand in hand.’
public commissions. Delacroix participated in the movement Then I read him the passage in which Dante tells of his
through his library decorations. His historical discourse, at arrival in the Elysian Fields, the welcome given him by
first fragmented into a series of decorated pendentives and Horace, Ovid, Lucan, and Homer.

THE GENIUS OF COLOR: 1855–63 217

Villot also advised Delacroix to add “various episodes that
could be brought into the composition, which would allow
you to introduce women and men—nude or draped—
animals, and a magnificent landscape.”156 The difficulty, of
course, lay in making a motley collection of illustrious philos-
ophers, artists, poets, lawmakers, generals, and war heroes
hold together, at the risk of creating a heterogeneous and
off-­putting juxtaposition of “great men.” The solemnity and
studious atmosphere of the space below the cupola also pre-
cluded a violently agitated composition of sharp contrasts.
The required clarity and serenity could give rise to tedium.
The aesthetic solution lay, first, in the suggestion of Dante and
his visit to the Elysian Fields as the subject and, second, in
Poussin’s poetics of painting.
Poussin’s Inspiration of the Poet (ca. 1629–30; Musée du
Louvre) gave Delacroix a brilliant encapsulation of all the
ingredients that would allow him to link idea and action,
history and myth, even while guaranteeing smooth connec-
tions between the figures, to create a narrative with diverse
light sources, colors, and gestures that would break the
monotony. Taking Poussin as his model, Delacroix laid out
arcadian landscapes in a bluish atmosphere, with myrtle
bushes and laurel trees. He introduced women in the guise of
nymphs, muses, and poetesses, and scattered about nude
children and winged genies (one brings Cincinnatus his
helmet, another offers water to Dante from the Hippocrene
spring, while a third bestows the palm leaf on Socrates), as
well as symbolic animals: the swan of Apollo, a doe and a
leopard near Orpheus. The challenge was met with panache,
as critics pointed out at the unveiling of the cupola:

M. Delacroix’s genius is essentially complex: it

embraces every horizon where the human soul can
lose its way. . . . What impressed us no less is the
extreme deftness with which all the heroes are
arranged into groups. Disseminated, in appearance,
under the dense shade of the myrtles, on the green
mounds of the prairie, they obey the imperious law of
the group and are connected to one another by light-
ing effects, a trick of color, an artful unevenness of the
terrain, and almost always as well by the idea.157

“The colorist’s reputation is assured, but the reputation of the

composer and the poet will certainly be further enhanced by
the publicity afforded by the paintings at the Luxembourg.”158

218 DELACROIX
CAT. 142 Ovid among the Scythians, 1859

THE GENIUS OF COLOR: 1855–63 219

 During this period, Delacroix had painted an identical beauty than the uneducated man who lives in regions where
composition for the half-­dome in the library of the Palais nothing is known of the pursuits of civilization. We see the
Bourbon: Orpheus Civilizes the Greeks and Teaches Them the beautiful only through the imagination of poets and painters;
Arts of Peace (fig. 97). It represents the felicitous birth of the savage encounters it with every step of his nomadic
civilization; its extinction was painted in the opposing apse, life. . . . In this the Siberian resembles the Greek [of the
in the form of Attila and His Hordes Overrun Italy and the Arts. Archaic period] and the Berber.”162 From a formal perspec-
With Ovid among the Scythians (cat. 142) about ten years later, tive, Delacroix took the details provided by Strabo on
Delacroix seems to have wished to rework that same program Scythian landscapes and the people’s ways (for example, the
on the scale of a large easel painting to be exhibited before importance of mare’s milk as the basis of the Scythian diet) as
the public. As Henri Loyrette noted, the artist did not adopt an opportunity to recapitulate all the beautiful bits of painting
the plaintive tone of Ovid’s Tristia. Rather, he turned to the he had perfected through study and the use of his memory
description of the Scythians by the Greek geographer Strabo, over a decade: horses, dogs, children, nude or draped
who remarked on their communal and harmonious social men and women, prairies and mountains, expanses of water
model, the simplicity of their economy, their frugality, and and clouds.
their innocent ways.159 The positive vision of an ignorant and Finally, the meditation on what ought to survive civiliza-
barbarian society, but one that was peaceful and spared from tion in general and his own oeuvre in particular may have led
corruption, agreed with a reflection Delacroix had inscribed Delacroix to reflect from a distance on his artistic and social
in the carnet héliotrope: “Framework for the history of an ailing career. Having attained the serenity of a career crowned with
heart and imagination, that of a man who, having lived a honors, but also protected from intrigues, did he remember
worldly life, finds himself a slave among the barbarians, or cast the uproarious and almost self-­destructive audacity that had
onto a desert island like Robinson Crusoe, forced to employ guided him as a young artist? A discreet inverted quotation
his bodily strength and his industry—which makes him return of The Death of Sardanapalus (see cat. 104) can in fact be
to natural feelings and calms his imagination . . . Ovid among detected in Ovid. In each of these compositions, the hero of
the Scythians.”160 The subject, though represented a first time the scene is a small figure enveloped in a white tunic, reclin-
on one of the many pendentives in the library of the Palais ing in the middle ground, his weight resting on his left arm; a
Bourbon, was far from exhausted in Delacroix’s opinion. In horse occupies the foreground. After the final orgy of a tyrant
1849 he had expressed the need to rework “the subject of who embodies civilization at its most inhumane and corrupt,
Ovid in Exile, composed in a larger format.”161 the artist depicts a return to the most ingenuous state of a
Ovid among the Scythians, as it was conceived and painted human community, which seems to recognize instinctively the
between 1855 and 1859, can be considered a kind of summa- superiority and respect that poetic genius inspires.
tion, in the sense that it represents Delacroix’s most intimate At the risk of a biographical interpretation, we may also
philosophical thoughts and deeply personal pictorial motifs. detect an even more personal resonance in the theme and
The situation of the banished poet Ovid, welcomed with framework of Ovid’s exile. The landscape of Ovid among the
generosity and respect by the barbarians—they kneel before Scythians displays a striking similarity to a landscape study
him and share their humble meal—allowed Delacroix to Delacroix kept in his studio until his death.163 The study is said
synthesize the ideas he had developed about the inevitable to have been painted in the 1820s, as a recollection of the
fate of great civilizations (a drift toward authoritarianism, Vienne Valley, south of Touraine. A comparison between it
moral decadence, social disintegration) and great geniuses and the Ovid decoration is unsettling, not only because of the
(incomprehension, slander, exile). But he also introduced the format and the depth, evoked by the staggered rows of moun-
hope of a possible regeneration, permitted by the Rousseauist tains slightly eroded by the river, but also because of the close
credo of precivilized man’s intuition of the beautiful, but also resemblance between the skies in the two works and the
by the great man’s tolerance, which ought to prevail over his overall balance of the color scheme. The fact that Delacroix
contempt for ignorance. That revived optimism comes could base himself on that old study in 1856–57, more than
through in an article published two years earlier: “The man thirty years after its execution, raises a question: Was it purely
of London and Paris may be farther from a proper sense of by chance, or should we attribute a meaning to the act of

220 DELACROIX
borrowing, one having to do with the theme of exile common returns, radiant: everything seems to be reborn and to sing a
to the two works? Delacroix discovered Touraine in his youth hymn to the Lord.”168 The subject probably interested
precisely because his family was exiled: he passed through it Delacroix for the same reasons as Ovid: it was a moment of
many times when returning to Charente, where his elder restored peace and union among human beings, animals, and
sister, Henriette—bankrupted by bad investments—had taken nature within a vast lakeside landscape. The sacrifice of Noah
refuge to avoid the high cost of living in Paris. His brother also would have allowed him to evoke the aftermath of cata-
Charles Henry, a baron who received his title during the clysm in the landscape and to depict the repopulation of the
Empire and a general on half-­pay, also lived in Touraine. earth by humans and animals. Delacroix’s entire bestiary could
Forced to get by on his wits after the fall of Napoleon and the have flourished there in a lavish display. Finally, the painter
death of his protector, Eugène de Beauharnais, Charles Henry could certainly have engaged in a dialogue with the great
had to accept very humble accommodations in the area masters, primarily Michelangelo but also Jacopo Bassano,
around Tours. At the time, Eugène Delacroix, young and on Baldassare Castiglione, Bruegel, and Rubens.
the threshold of success, had felt a mixture of shame and That testamentary exercise of synthesis, which occurred
compassion for the wretched situation of his elder brother, a about 1855, can be explained in part by the context. Not only
“tired libertine” who concealed his loss of social status while was Delacroix at the height of his career, but he was also
living “surrounded by roughnecks and riff-­raff.”164 granted the rare privilege (no doubt unprecedented in the
Thirty years later, the suffering and dissension were history of French painting) of a vast retrospective exhibition
forgotten; what remained was the pleasure, on returning to during his lifetime. The event was not just for the benefit of
the family’s roots in familiar landscapes, of reviving the mem- the public and the critics but for himself as well. Regrettably,
ory of loved ones he had lost. In 1855, during his stay with the he did not express what he felt on seeing his body of work
Verninacs in Corrèze, he was pleased to imagine himself once reassembled in a single space. It is possible to imagine that
more “with these dear ones in Touraine and Charente, places such an experience could have sparked the desire to produce
that are beautiful to me, beautiful to my heart.” The enchant- a final summation and to bequeath to posterity a key to under-
ing filter of past time and memory metamorphosed the land of standing his most profound artistic aspirations. The same
forced exile into an earthly paradise, where the aged artist, mechanism may have been at work in Ingres, another benefi-
having lost his illusions about the world, more willingly con- ciary, in 1855, of a solo retrospective, who was engaged
sented to retire. during the same period in a synthesis of his motifs in The
It is possible that the unifying ambition that seems to Turkish Bath (1852–59, modified 1862; Musée du Louvre).
have guided Delacroix in Ovid among the Scythians (see When Delacroix reintroduced himself to the public at
cat. 142) and its testamentary nature might have taken a differ- the Salon of 1859, he did not do so only with the microcosm
ent form or found an even richer, complementary outlet. In of Ovid, the reprise of a subject for a large decorative paint-
1855, the year Delacroix came up with the first sketch for ing, enriched with the landscapes, populations, fauna, and
Ovid,165 he wrote of another project, rather similar formally, flora of ancient Scythia. He also included: Erminia, a microcosm
taken from Genesis. “A magnificent subject: Noah’s Sacrifice of the Renaissance world of chivalry; the second version of
with His Family after the Flood. The animals are spreading out The Abduction of Rebecca (cat. 141), which conveys the spar-
over the earth, the birds into the air—the monsters, con- kling medieval imagination of Sir Walter Scott; The Banks of the
demned by divine wisdom, lie half buried in the mud; the River Sebou, with its procession of memories of Morocco; the
dripping branches reach toward the sky.”166 Nearly two years fifth version of Hamlet and Horatio in the Graveyard, which
later, while Delacroix was working on Ovid (its execution was summed up his long engagement with Shakespeare’s works;
commissioned by Benoît Fould), the idea of that “magnificent and the golden and bloody legend of Christianity, with Saint
subject” came back to him and was faithfully recopied.167 It Sebastian (sixth reprise) and The Ascent to Calvary (the initial
reappeared two weeks later, then once again in 1860, when he idea for the decoration of Saint-­Sulpice). The juxtaposition of
was rereading the Journal of 1855. Delacroix formulated his these concentrated worlds, covering in appearance a small
idea a third time and this time completed it: “The clouds run surface but delving deep into time and the spaces the artist
along the horizon; Eurus and Notus disperse them. The sun had passed through over nearly forty years, allowed Delacroix

THE GENIUS OF COLOR: 1855–63 221

to give a form to the enormous pictorial galaxy constructed in a microcosm where he reigned as master, composing
the twilight of his career. That world grew out of his under- and decomposing its elements depending on the
standing of the great books and his mastery of all the genres effect he wanted to produce. All the images of nature
of painting. It was later revitalized by an uninterrupted dia- floated in it, not copied but conceived and trans-
logue with the great painters of the past and the successive formed, used like words to express ideas and, espe-
challenges of the large decorative paintings. And it was finally cially, passions. In the slightest sketch as in the largest
enriched by his awareness of the passage of time and the painting, the sky, the earth, the trees, the sea, and the
creative force of memory. The artist thus demonstrated the factories participate in the scene they surround. They
maturity, autonomy, and fertility of his pictorial imagination, are stormy or clear, smooth or turbulent, leafless or
the definition of which he had finally set down in writing: verdant, calm or convulsive, ruined or magnificent,
“The artist’s imagination does not merely represent objects of but always they seem to embrace the wrath, the hatred,
one kind or another: it combines them for the end it wishes the sorrow, and the sadness of the characters. It would
to achieve; it makes pictures, images that it composes as it be impossible to detach the figures from the landscape.
likes.”169 To borrow his own terms, Delacroix was finally They themselves have meaningful costumes, draperies,
ranging freely throughout his entire kingdom and giving, to all weapons, and accessories that could not be used by
eyes willing to linger there, “a feast of his own choosing.”170 others. Everything ties together, everything is tied up to
The public and the art critics were accustomed to glori- form a magic whole, from which no part could be
fying Delacroix as a painter of grandes machines and large removed or transposed without making the entire
decorative works. But, with the exception of Baudelaire and edifice collapse. In art, we know of only Rembrandt
Astruc, they did not understand what was being played out in who has that same unity, profound and indissoluble.
these little worlds. Not until ten years after Delacroix’s death That is because these two great masters created their
did Gautier look back and seem to have taken their measure: works by an inner vision of sorts. They had the gift of
making it perceptible with the means they possessed,
Delacroix was not one of those painters who liked to rather than through an immediate study of the subject.
close himself off in a narrow specialization and repre- Rembrandt, like Delacroix, had his architecture, his
sent only a small number of objects, always the same. changing room, his arsenal, his museum of antiques,
His vast talent embraced nature as a whole, and every- his types and forms, his light and darkness, his ranges
thing that had life, form, and color was within the ken of colors, which do not exist elsewhere and from which
of his palette. With a spirit remarkably harmonious he knows how to extract marvelous effects, rendering
in its apparent disorder, he made a world of his own, the fantastic truer than reality.171

CAT. 98 The Shipwreck of Don Juan, 1840, detail

222 DELACROIX
 The Act of Looking in Delacroix’s
Early Narrative Paintings
ASHER MILLER

Sometime in 1824 or 1825, on a leaf of paper crammed with a little or read. Then I eat a frugal lunch . . . Next I go to
jottings and sketches, Delacroix noted to himself, “look for a work either at the Museum or at M. Guérin’s.” Following
subject.”1 Delacroix’s imagination was galvanized by an active dinner, “I go to my [drawing class] three times a week, which
dialogue between visual and literary stimuli. To realize his takes up the better part of my evenings.”2 After quitting
paintings, the artist drew from a vast store of pictorial sources, Pierre Narcisse Guérin’s studio he wrote to Henriette again,
most immediately, the holdings of the Louvre. And a passion on May 30, adding a detail in connection with his afternoon
for reading, encompassing the Bible and the latest novels of work at the Louvre, “. . . which I wouldn’t miss because
Sir Walter Scott, catalyzed his creative process. Distinctive I’ve paid for a very expensive scaffold. . .”3 Many years later,
among the subjects he chose to paint were narrative historical Delacroix’s friend Charles Soulier would recall finding the
scenes in which the protagonists’ act of looking was crucial to aspiring twenty-­two-­year-­old painter, apparently on June 10,
the unfolding of the story. The focus of this essay is Delacroix’s 1820, “perched at the top of an immense ladder in the Grand
particular attraction to subjects that enabled him to stage the Salon of the Louvre, copying heads in Paul Veronese’s
act of looking in his paintings. Delacroix sought to engage his Marriage at Cana” (fig. 98).4
viewers by portraying a trail of gazes that they could follow Close study of masterpieces, especially by means of
with their own eyes, even if they were unfamiliar with the copying, was a core practice of artistic training. Veronese’s
literary source depicted. The following account of his treat- picture—then as now the largest in the Louvre—was consid-
ment of the theme of sight during the 1820s will shed light on ered exemplary not only for its vivid color, dynamic brushwork,
his larger aims as he sought to build an audience through the and drama, but also for its deployment of some 130 figures in a
display of paintings of varying size and ambition at the Salon thoroughly unified and harmonious composition. From its
during the opening decade of his career. arrival at the museum in 1798, Cana was central to the revival
As the decade opened, Delacroix was a young art student of the Venetian school’s prestige, which took hold especially
who had yet to produce a major painting. On May 1, 1820, during the Romantic period. Delacroix’s copy (cat. 3) repro-
in a letter to his sister, Henriette de Verninac, Delacroix duces two bearded heads seen in left profile, a detail no more
described the activities that made up his daily routine. “I rise or less remarkable than any other he could have selected in
fairly early,” he wrote, explaining, “I practice my harpsichord the original painting. Perhaps most notable are the impressive

225
FIG. 98. Paolo Veronese (Italian, 1528–1588). The Marriage at Cana, 1563. Oil on canvas, 22 ft. 3 in. x 32 ft. (6.8 x 9.8 m). Musée du Louvre, Paris (142)

dimensions of the copy, which, at sixty-­four centimeters in glance, for example, now connects more directly with the
height by eighty-­two in width, is executed on the same impos- central bearded figure.6 The result holds together almost as
ing scale as its source. By employing a scaffold, Delacroix was an independent composition, if not precisely a “complete”
able to produce an aide-­mémoire for his studio based on close work of art. Whether Delacroix saw Gericault’s creative
study of Veronese’s brushwork. copy before he painted his own is a matter of conjecture,
Delacroix’s selection of these figures may have been but he eventually came to own it, possibly acquiring it after
suggested by a similar copy, one made by his somewhat older Gericault’s death on January 26, 1824, at his atelier sale.
friend and mentor Théodore Gericault (fig. 99).5 Gericault’s Rather than forge a new context for the two bearded figures,
copy, of similar size, features the same two figures, but it also as Gericault had done, Delacroix simply excised them from
includes seven others, as well as the shoulder of an eighth their original setting, rendering it impossible to identify the
seen from behind—and a parrot. Gericault took certain liber- object of their gaze.
ties, introducing subtle shifts in position that turn the group- In Veronese’s picture, the bearded men are stewards of
ing into a veritable ring of heads. One consequence of pulling the house of Cana, and they address the bride and groom,
multiple figures closer together was to link them; the dwarf’s who are found at the far left of the vast painting. The bride, in

226 DELACROIX
 CAT. 3 Two Bearded Heads, after Veronese
(detail from “The Marriage at Cana”), 1820

FIG. 99. Théodore Gericault. Study after Veronese (detail from The Marriage at Cana), ca. 1810(?). Oil on canvas,
253⁄16 x 325⁄16 in. (64 x 82 cm). Museum Folkwang, Essen
 work gives so much pleasure is that each beholder can finish
it as he chooses.”8
The interval between spring 1820 and spring 1822
was a gestational period for Delacroix, culminating in the
exhibition of his first masterwork at the Salon, The Barque
of Dante (fig. 2). Based on Inferno, from Dante Alighieri’s
early fourteenth-­century epic poem The Divine Comedy, it
shows the great Florentine poet crossing the lake surrounding
the walled city of Dis with his imagined guide, the Roman
poet Virgil, and it helped to establish Delacroix’s reputation
as a painter of a literary cast. In the autumn of 1822, following
its acquisition by the state and subsequent installation at
the Musée du Luxembourg, Delacroix noted reflectively in
his Journal:

When I have painted a fine picture I have not given

expression to a thought. That is what they say. What
fools people are! They would strip painting of all its
advantages. A writer has to say almost everything in
order to make himself understood, but painting builds
a kind of mysterious bridge between the soul of the
characters and that of the spectator. We see the figures
Rebecca and the Wounded Ivanhoe, 1823. Oil on canvas, 253⁄8 x 211⁄8 in.
FIG. 100.
(64.5 x 53.7 cm). Signed (upper right): Eug. Delacroix. Mrs. Charles outside us but we reflect within ourselves; the true
Wrightsman, New York (J 243) thinking that is common to all men.9

Delacroix’s statement makes explicit the terms of the relation-

turn, looks directly out of the picture to meet the gaze of the ship between the painter, the figures he depicts, and the
viewer, impassively and without a hint of solicitousness. Thus viewer—and it does so in terms that proclaim the advantages
is completed a triangular circuit of gazes, one that originates of painting over literature, reiterating in personal terms a
and concludes with the viewer. In his framing of the two topos with Renaissance origins.
bearded figures, Delacroix (as both beholder and painter) was As far as is known, the first literary subject Delacroix
reproducing, or underscoring, a single node of this circuit. completed after The Barque of Dante in 1822 was Rebecca and
Delacroix made other copies after The Marriage at Cana. One the Wounded Ivanhoe, which he painted in 1823 (fig. 100).10
of these copies, which reproduces the bride and groom plus This would also be Delacroix’s first treatment of a scene from
four further heads (private collection), has at various times Sir Walter Scott’s widely read historical novels, and his first
been identified as a work by Delacroix, and as such would drawn from contemporary literature.11 Ivanhoe was initially
have made a curious pendant to Two Bearded Heads, which is published in English in 1820, and it was translated into French
of the same or similar dimensions.7 Although the figures in the following year. Delacroix’s picture may even be the very
Two Bearded Heads are extracted from their original context first visualization by a French artist of a novel by Scott.
in Veronese’s complex composition, the copy bears a more The scene Delacroix chose to depict comes from
than vestigial relationship to the whole because in it resides chapter 29, in which Wilfrid of Ivanhoe and the Jewish hero-
the potential for the viewer to complete the greater circuit of ine Rebecca are imprisoned in Torquilstone, the castle of
gazes of which it forms one part. Many years later Delacroix Reginald Front-­de-­Boeuf, which is under siege by forces
commented on the viewer’s role to the part as it relates to the including the disguised Richard the Lionheart. Because
whole, writing, “Perhaps the only reason why the sketch for a Ivanhoe is wounded, he is confined to bed. For this reason,

228 DELACROIX
 CAT. 84 The Natchez, 1823–24 and 1835

Rebecca, who is secretly in love with Ivanhoe, must describe predicated on her act of seeing, and, secondarily, Ivanhoe’s
the battle taking place outside the window. Rebecca is response to her reaction to what she sees.
appalled by the violence she chronicles because military Rebecca and the Wounded Ivanhoe was the first painting
combat is alien to her experience. Her reaction is contrasted on a literary theme that Delacroix completed after The Barque
to that of Ivanhoe, whose chivalric ethos leads him to strain of Dante, but it was not the only one in progress at the time
to see what she sees, and to be frustrated that he can neither he sold it in the final days of December 1823, directly from his
see nor participate in the bloodletting. His reply to her makes studio, to the collector Louis Joseph Auguste Coutan.12 As
explicit their divergent cultural perspectives: “Thou art no early as October 1822, Delacroix noted his thought to paint a
Christian, Rebecca.” The action that underlies the scene subject quite different from Ivanhoe: “A young Canadian
is witnessed by Rebecca alone; the subject of the painting is traveling through the wilderness with her husband is taken by

The Act of Looking 229

labor pains and lies down; the father enfolds the newborn in to the fact that Delacroix set aside The Natchez in order to
his arms.”13 This idea would eventually find an outlet in The devote himself more assiduously to the larger and far more
Natchez (cat. 84), the subject of which, set on the banks of the ambitious Chios, only to return to the smaller picture a decade
Mississippi River, is a fictionalized episode from the French later. The chronology of the preparatory studies that relate to
and Indian War of the 1760s, drawn from François René de the two pictures is unclear, but their genesis is closely linked.
Chateaubriand’s 1801 novella Atala.14 The painting was under A watercolor study for Chios (see fig. 6) shows that an early
way by December 1823: “I’m working on my savages.”15 For stage of the composition already featured the prominent cleft
reasons that will soon be addressed, however, progress on The between the two main figural groupings in the foreground that
Natchez ceased in early 1824, and the picture would remain was present in The Natchez from its inception.17 In the Chios
incomplete until 1835, when it was finally exhibited in the watercolor, the mother at the right sits on the ground with her
Salon. Delacroix would then include an explanatory note in knees bent to her right in a position which mirrors that of the
the livret: “Fleeing the massacre of their tribe, two young father in The Natchez. She looks down to her dead infant, who
savages traveled up the Méschacébé [Mississippi River]. lies beside her. Attention to two mothers—one whose child is
During the voyage, the young woman was seized by labor dead (Chios) and one whose child is soon to die (Natchez)—
pains. The moment is that when the father holds the newborn evidently stretched the artist’s capacity to infuse both pictures
in his hands, and both regard him tenderly (CHATEAUBRIANT with commensurate emotional power, and Delacroix is likely
[sic], scene from Atala).” to have reached an impasse about how to proceed with both
At first glance, the mother’s expression may be read as works simultaneously. He would find a solution with the aid
one of physical exhaustion, befitting a woman who has just of a report from Chios, the account given by Olivier Voutier
given birth. Indeed, the overriding effect of the scene, taking in his Mémoires du Colonel Voutier sur la guerre actuelle des Grecs:
into account the disposition of the figural group, the landscape “A traveler who witnessed the disasters at Chios told me that
setting, and the narrative moment predicated on an escape nothing had ever produced a more painful impression on his
from danger, is that of a Holy Family in traditional depictions soul than the sight of the cadaver of a young woman whose
of the Flight into Egypt. Seen in this light, which is consistent child still pressed her withered breasts with its eager hands.”18
with Atala’s Christian theme, the mother’s expression can be This book was published in Paris in December 1823, and
understood as revealing an intimation of her child’s tragic fate. Delacroix met its author soon afterward, on January 12, 1824,
Yet even as Delacroix relates the spirit of the text, the painting the day he began to paint Chios.19 The stricken mother and
diverges from it in significant ways. At the time Chateaubriand uncomprehending child cited by Voutier undoubtedly sum-
introduces the infant to the reader, the child has already died; moned to Delacroix’s mind the motif he eventually employed,
the father returns soon afterward to find the mother preparing that of the dead mother with its living child, with which he
funerary rites. Delacroix thus takes the death of the child into was certainly already familiar from such works as Marcantonio
account by means of the mother’s expression, while diverging Raimondi’s engraving after Raphael’s Plague at Phrygia, of
significantly from the textual source. In The Natchez, the about 1515–16, and Poussin’s Plague at Ashdod of 1630–31.20
nature of the parents’ gazes, which is more than a simple The figure of the mother in the Chios watercolor was trans-
tender regard on the mother’s part, to use the artist’s words, formed in the final painting into the elderly woman who looks
gains additional resonance when the early history of the up and to her left, with an expression of resignation on the
painting is taken into account together with that of yet another heels of fear. In the painting, where she sits beside the dead
stripe, Scenes from the Massacres at Chios (see fig. 5). mother and the uncomprehending infant, she assumes the
Massacres at Chios is based on the tragic siege of the role of matriarch in a group that signifies the Three Ages of
Aegean island in early 1822, during the Greek War of Man, violently ruptured. It was probably the adoption of this
Independence from the Ottoman Empire. Delacroix first three-­figure grouping in Chios, in place of the earlier one
thought to paint the subject in May 1823,16 and work on the showing only the mother with her dead child, that prompted
immense canvas commenced in the middle of January 1824. Delacroix to cease work on The Natchez in 1824.
The origins of Chios interwine with those of The Natchez, yet Because he had intensified the morbidity of the larger
this is not obvious from their respective styles, in part owing picture, the imperative of bringing the smaller one to a

230 DELACROIX
conclusion must have lost urgency in 1824. Yet when means of his hand on the carpet that covers the table; smell, by
Delacroix resumed work on The Natchez in 1835 in order to means of the flowers; and hearing, by means of the mandolin
complete it for the Salon, the experience of having trans- held by one of the daughters. It has often been noted that a
formed the relevant passage of Chios could not have been painting within the painting, a copy of Raphael’s Expulsion of
remote from his thoughts, even if the layers of association Adam and Eve from Paradise fresco in the Vatican, which appears
behind the gazes in the Natchez family group were not evident at the upper left of the composition, conveys the subject of
to the public. The conjunction between two subjects bound Milton’s poem, but it may also be understood as standing in
by charged relationships between a mother and her children for the act of copying as representing the primacy of sight.24
extended to a third that Delacroix first noted at the time he Another, slightly later, English subject is Cromwell at
was working on those pictures: on March 4, 1824, he noted Windsor Castle (1828/30; private collection). Drawn from an
summarily, “I’m preoccupied by Medea,” another subject episode in Sir Walter Scott’s Woodstock, it shows the Lord
he would develop into a painting in the 1830s, one in which Protector glowering at a portrait of his nemesis, Charles I (by
the principal figure’s gaze plays a dominant role in conveying Anthony Van Dyck, according to Scott). A cavalier called
the effect (see cats. 91, 94).21 Wildrake, in the author’s words, “stood a silent, inactive, and
Delacroix’s penchant for literary subjects that stage the almost a terrified spectator, while Cromwell, assuming a firm
act of looking lies behind his investigation of the possibilities sternness of eye and manner, as one who compels himself to
of the gaze in disparate and sometimes even mischievous look on what some strong internal feeling renders painful and
paintings that he produced throughout the 1820s, giving disgustful to him, proceeded, in brief and interrupted expres-
credence to his notion of a “bridge between the spirit of the sions, but yet with a firm voice, to comment on the portrait of
persons in the picture and the beholder.” A cabinet picture in the late King.” It is quite possible that the subject was realized
the Troubador mode, The Duke of Orléans Showing His Lover as the result of a conversation with its first owner, Charles’s
(cat. 24) is based on an episode in Les vies des dames galantes, descendant Edouard, duc de Fitz-­James.25
by Pierre de Bourdeille, called Brantôme, which was first The paintings under consideration to this point have
published in 1666 and reissued in 1822. The author recounts been presented chronologically but selectively. Indispensable
a story about Louis I, duc d’Orléans, who had taken the to Delacroix’s literary imagination was a writer not yet
wife of one of his vassals as his mistress. When the husband addressed here, Lord Byron. The British adventurer-­poet was
enters Louis’s bedchamber, Louis raises the woman’s skirt, responsible for texts that inspired a number of Delacroix’s
putatively to mask her face and preserve her modesty, but most ambitious paintings of the 1820s, and the author would
thereby revealing her nudity. For not recognizing his wife, remain a touchstone to Delacroix for the rest of his life (see,
neither above nor below, the husband is thus twice the for example, The Shipwreck of Don Juan and The Bride of
cuckold. In this complex game of who-­sees-­what, the viewer Abydos [Selim and Zuleika]; cats. 98, 139). Among these were
alone sees all. The possibilities suggested by its licentious two works exhibited at the Salon of 1827–28, The Execution of
theme were extended in A Lady and Her Valet (cat. 32), which Doge Marino Faliero (1825–26; see fig. 25) and The Death of
is probably also based on a scene from Brantôme. Here, a Sardanapalus (1826–27; see fig. 20).26 The earlier painting is
woman asleep—or seemingly so—in a canopy bed is pre- based on act 5 of the dramatic poem Marino Faliero, Doge of
sented nude for the viewer’s delectation. Only secondarily Venice (1820), which tells the story of the fourteenth-­century
is the viewer likely to notice that the reclining woman’s leader who led a failed coup d’état against the Republic’s
valet has just entered the shadowy depths of the room, and aristocratic regime.27 The picture shows the decapitated for-
only afterward that the valet is a potential rival for the mer doge at the bottom of a staircase, which provides a con-
woman’s attention.22 spicuously empty center to the composition. On the steps and
A more high-­minded subject, depicted in Milton the balcony above are gathered the leaders of Venice, among
Dictating “Paradise Lost” to His Daughters (Salon of 1827–28), whom Faliero had stood moments earlier; one of them raises
attracted numerous Romantic painters.23 Here, the blind the bloody sword, while the executioner himself stands to the
English poet’s inability to see is presented alongside manifesta- right of the corpse. The commoners with whom Faliero had
tions of other senses that he retained in force: touch, by conspired surge into the scene at the bottom right. It has often

The Act of Looking 231

been observed that the painting departs from Byron’s text.28 Byron’s writings stimulated and challenged Delacroix
The gazes of the figures in Marino Faliero do not orient the to produce some of his most ambitious paintings. Yet the
viewer in the same directed way as many of the signal figures relationship between the viewer and the figures in these paint-
in paintings discussed elsewhere in this essay, and neither ings is more complicated, ambiguous, and diffuse than in the
does the mise-­en-­scène. Yet Delacroix arguably found ample others. The shift is subtle, yet a clue is to be found in later
cues in Byron’s text that prompted him to approach the pic- iterations of his initial 1822 credo.29 The next time Delacroix is
ture according to terms laid out here. When the sentence is known to have committed it to writing, in his Journal in 1850,
delivered to the disgraced Faliero and he is told that his it appears as: “I’ve told myself a hundred times that painting,
would-be tomb among those of other doges of Venice will materially speaking, is only the pretext, the bridge between the
be empty save for its inscription, “This place is of Marino mind of the painter and that of the spectator. Cold precision is
Faliero, / Decapitated for his crimes,” Faliero’s initial reply not art; skillful invention, when it is pleasing or when it is expres-
concludes with these lines: sive, is art itself.”30 In the original formulation, it is the souls of
the characters within the painting and the viewer Delacroix
Decapitated for his crimes?— What crimes? aimed to bridge, but in the latter version, the material painting
Were it not better to record the facts, itself has become the bridge between the mind of the painter
So that the contemplator might approve, and that of the spectator. Taking the artist at his word, the point
Or at the least learn whence the crimes arose? of emphasis in the tripartite circuit of looking has shifted.31
When the beholder knows a Doge conspired, The shift is perceptible in a work executed in 1846,
Let him be told the cause–it is your history. when, over two decades after he painted Rebecca and the
Wounded Ivanhoe (see fig. 100), Delacroix was inspired to take
The text raises questions that address the relationship between up the very next scene in Scott’s novel. (There is no written
author and audience, questions surrrounding what one sees and evidence that he had previously contemplated it.) The subject
who makes that determination, and the way in which still-­ of the Abduction of Rebecca (see cat. 105), exhibited at the
unfolding events will be recounted after they have concluded, Salon of 1846, is the battle that Rebecca had been describing
far in the future. Further on one reads, “the Ten, the Avogadori to Ivanhoe moments before in the earlier picture. Now, hav-
/ The Giunta, and the chief men of the Forty / Alone will be ing fainted, she is being carried off by two Saracen slaves
the beholders of thy doom”; and still later, as if in response, one commanded by the villainous knight Brian de Bois-­Guilbert.
of the citizens deep in the crowd outside the gates of the Ducal Gone are the period details—the mail and armor, the finely
Palace states, “Let us hear at least, since sight / Is thus prohib- patterned fabrics and beaded jewelry, and the Gothic décor
ited unto the people / Except the occupiers of those bars.” In brought to enamel-­like finish—the exceptionally punctilious
Byron’s text, because any view of Faliero is blocked by the city brushwork of which probably contributed to the artist’s
leaders who surround him, from that moment onward partial self-­deprecatory reference to the picture as “my execrable
updates are called out by the various citizens who are able to painting.”32 Conspicuously absent in the later picture, too, is
catch a glimpse of the beheading. The poem ends with the line, the reliance on the act of seeing and facial expression that
“The gory head rolls down the Giants’ Steps!” impart maximal charge to the earlier one; one might even cite
The similarly violent The Death of Sardanapalus (see the rejection of active looking in the dormant figure of
fig. 20) is based on Byron’s dramatic poem first published in Rebecca herself. In their place is energetic, gestural painting
1821. In this massive picture, the action unfolds at the instiga- anticipated, perhaps, by the jumble of paint strokes immedi-
tion of the protagonist, the final king of Assyria, who has ately surrounding and to the left of Rebecca’s right hand in
ordered the ultimate visual spectacle: the destruction by fire Rebecca and the Wounded Ivanhoe.
of all that he possesses, which he will observe until he too is The figures who constitute the main group in the
immolated. Not only is the subject drawn from Byron, but it is Abduction of Rebecca interlock in a fashion that is difficult to
a painting in a Byronic mode, because Delacroix employs the apprehend at a glance, particularly as their complex and fluid
writer’s strategy of compressing the action into a time frame movements compete for the viewer’s attention; they are, as it
that is both limited and elastic. were, suspended in a very complicated state of animation.

232 DELACROIX
 Peter Paul Rubens. Abduction of the Daughters of Leucippus, 1618. Oil on
FIG. 101. Théodore Gericault. Mameluck of the Imperial Guard
FIG. 102.
canvas, 883⁄16 x 827⁄8 in. (224 x 210.5 cm). Alte Pinakothek, Munich (inv. 321) Defending a Wounded Trumpeter from a Cossack, 1818. Lithograph,
image 137⁄16 x 1015⁄16 in. (34.2 x 27.8 cm), sheet 16 x 117⁄8 in.
(40.7 x 30.2 cm). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York,
H. O. Havemeyer Collection, Bequest of Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer,
1929 (29.107.123)

And yet, their volume and firm silhouette are a counterpoint Delacroix ceaselessly investigated new possibilities of
to the vaporous form of the flaming fortress behind them. pictorial representation, drawing from a tradition that
Although Delacroix had rehearsed the composition in prepa- extended back through Gericault, through Guérin to David
ratory drawings, he improvised directly on the canvas: no and beyond—to a truly broad swath of European art encom-
underdrawing is evident, and the brushwork is constructive, passing Rubens to the north and Veronese to the south. Time
varied, sketch-­like.33 The result is an effusion of painting, and again, in the course of his readings from literature and
representing half a lifetime of visual memory projected onto history, the narrative moment that would strike him as a com-
the canvas. The figural group as a whole is a reimagining of pelling subject to transpose into paint was one that revolved
Rubens’s Abduction of the Daughters of Leucippus (fig. 101) around the faculty of sight. This idea unites paintings from the
and Gericault’s Mameluck of the Imperial Guard Defending a formative decade of the 1820s that are disparate in terms of
Wounded Trumpeter from a Cossack (fig. 102).34 Rebecca’s upper subject and tenor, date and décor; and Delacroix’s pursuit of
body in the 1823 painting is transfigured into the pose of her it in a variety of pictorial contexts helped to set the stage for
tormentor Bois-­Guilbert in the 1846 painting. Ivanhoe’s blue his later production. “Look for a subject” is a simple phrase,
doublet with red sleeves is reconceived as the one worn by but a revealing statement that goes to the heart of his pictorial
the Saracen on the right in the later picture, and Rebecca’s practice. To look, to observe, to gaze upon something or
white-­and-gold-­striped kerchief is restyled as the shawl hiked someone was a form of action that grasped Delacroix’s atten-
up around her waist. tion and upon which he ruminated, with novel results.

The Act of Looking 233

 “Painting His Thoughts on Paper”:
Delacroix and His Journal
MICHÈLE HANNOOSH

“Just as he was confident about writing what he thought on as a painter, at all. For it did matter: not only did Delacroix
a canvas, so he worried about not being able to paint his spend a considerable amount of his time writing—the text of
thoughts on paper”: as the poet Charles Baudelaire suggested the Journal occupies more than one thousand pages of print—
in 1863, painting and writing were for Delacroix interrelated but the result is a resolutely literary work, containing only a
activities.1 Painting was literary, a means of expressing his ideas handful of drawings. Not just another sketchbook with notes,
through color and form; writing was pictorial, giving depth, the Journal was the repository and crucible of Delacroix’s
shape, and density to immaterial thought. Baudelaire based his thoughts, a space of experimentation for ideas and expression,
remarks on Delacroix’s then-­published essays on art and and, as such, absolutely essential to him as an artist.
artists, and on his printed descriptions of some of his paintings. The Journal begins in 1822 when Delacroix was twenty-­
Baudelaire did not know Delacroix’s greatest experiment in four and continues for two years. It then falls silent for more
writing, which would become one of the major works in the than two decades, resuming only in 1847, after which it pro-
literature of art history and one of the painter’s most original ceeds fairly regularly until his death in 1863. In the long
contributions: his Journal. interval between these two phases, he filled many notebooks,
A long tradition defining painting as a manual, rather including the resplendent ones that he brought back from
than intellectual, art has made the corpus of writings by artists North Africa and southern Spain in 1832, recording places
relatively small: Leonardo da Vinci’s notebooks, Michelangelo’s visited, sights seen, and people encountered.2 The Journal,
poetry, Joshua Reynolds’s Discourses, Vincent van Gogh’s in contrast, was a long, sustained conversation with himself—
correspondence, to name the salient examples. The Journal his thoughts, emotions, readings, observations, and memories.
occupies a prominent place within this select group. In these And its two phases are significantly different from each other,
pages, Delacroix discusses matters ranging from practical serving distinct purposes.
information to abstract ideas, from small details to momentous
events. The Journal provides a unique perspective on his life, Tuesday, 3 September 1822—I am carrying out the plan,
thought, and work, and on a society undergoing the rapid and which I have made so often, of keeping a diary. What
sometimes tumultuous changes of modern life. Perhaps most I most keenly desire is not to lose sight of the fact that I
of all, it raises the question of why writing mattered to him, am writing for myself alone; thus I will be truthful, I

235
 hope; I will become the better for it. This paper will
reproach me for my variability (fig. 103).3

This is a momentous time in Delacroix’s life. The Journal

opens on the anniversary of his mother’s death—“may her
spirit hover over me as I write it, and may she never have
cause to blush for her son.”4 He has also just learned that his
first major painting, The Barque of Dante, purchased by the
French government at the Salon of 1822, has been installed in
the Musée du Luxembourg, at the time the museum of con-
temporary art.5 This first professional success might have
inspired a sense of confidence and self-­assurance; instead, as
the New-­Year’s-­resolution quality of the first lines implies, it
did not. The young Delacroix is worried about his fickleness,
weakness of character, falseness to himself, the need to “become
better.” Indeed the early diary bears witness to a life in chaos.
His financial affairs, his emotional state, even his memory
FIG. 103. Journal, September 3, 1822. Ink on paper,
have gotten away from him: “My memory disappears so much each page 67⁄8 x 41⁄2 in. (17.6 x 11.5 cm). Institut
from one day to the next that I’m no longer in control of National d’Histoire de l’Art, Bibliothèque Jacques
anything: neither of the past which I’m forgetting, nor of the Doucet, Paris (Ms 247, cahier 1, fol. 1 recto)
present, when I’m almost always so obsessed with one thing
that I lose sight . . . of everything else; nor even of the future,
since I’m never sure of whether I might have already commit- Here, too, are the comings and goings of his band of friends
ted myself to something. . . . A man without memory does not as they move freely in and out of one another’s homes, sharing
know what he can count on—everything betrays him.”6 paints, food, drink, and lovers, discussing genius, glory, friend-
The regular exercise of writing the Journal is meant to ship, and the soul.9 Self-­exhortations recur throughout:
establish control, present him with a record of failings to rectify,
calm his agitation, impose order on his ideas and behavior, Wretch! how can you ever do anything great when you
and testify to experiences that his faulty memory has forgotten: spend all your time with lowly things? Concentrate on
“I have just read the preceding pages. I deplore the gaps. It the great Michelangelo. Nourish yourself with the
seems to me that I am still master of those days that I wrote grand, austere beauties which feed the soul. I am
about, even though they have passed. But those days that these always turned away from them by foolish distractions.
pages do not mention, it’s as though they never existed.”7 Seek out solitude. If your life is orderly, your health
The early Journal has the character of this tumultuous, will not suffer from your isolation.
slightly bohemian life of a young man in the full fervor of
his emotions and on the threshold of his career. It records his Go to bed early and get up likewise.
enthusiasm for Byron and Dante, Velázquez and Michelangelo;
it registers the passions and disappointments of his love life as Steel yourself against your first impressions: keep
he makes advances to his studio models or carries on a liaison your composure.
with his best friend’s lover while the friend is away. It contains
drafts of his love letters to this woman, with their rather fatu- Order in your ideas is the only route to happiness.
ous, self-­serving reasoning: “Tell me, my love, that he and I are
equally dear to you. Why should you be embarrassed about Work calmly and unhurriedly. As soon as you begin to
that? Are women made differently from us men? Do we have work up a sweat and your blood begins to boil, beware.
any scruples about wooing someone we fall for momentarily?”8 Careless painting is the painting of the careless.10

236 DELACROIX
Among the possible subjects for paintings that Delacroix notes on the ceiling of the Gallery of Apollo in the Louvre (see
in these years are the most grandiose allegories, reflecting the fig. 53). The debutant has become a famous artist, still
Romantic extravagance and ambition of the debutant—“Blind contested and shunned by some, but nevertheless secure
destiny dragging the supplicants who vainly try, through their in his success. He has not touched his Journal in twenty-­
cries and prayers, to arrest its inflexible arm”; “On the edge of three years.
the abyss, Time struggles against Chaos”; “The man of genius The 19th of January may be considered a fairly typical
at the gates of death. . . . He throws himself into the arms of day. He paid visits to the architect Alphonse de Gisors to
Truth, the supreme deity; . . . he leaves error and stupidity discuss a possible commission, and to an engraver who was
behind”; “Barbarism dancing around the pyre of civilization.”11 to reproduce one of his paintings. He also stopped at a col-
And sometimes, peeking through the bathos and the bombast, league’s place to discuss plans for an independent exhibition
are his first philosophical thoughts on painting: to rival the Salon. Entering the Panthéon, he observed the
paintings in the cupola by Antoine Jean Gros, about which
Painting builds a kind of mysterious bridge between he would write an article the following year. From there he
the soul of the characters and that of the spectator. visited the studio of one of his students who was painting
We see the figures outside us but we reflect within a Prometheus, and then arrived at the Muséum National
ourselves. . . . The art of the painter is all the closer d’Histoire Naturelle.14
to the human heart for being more material. . . . The
soul finds something stirring in objects which only Natural history museum, open to the public Tuesdays
strike the senses. and Fridays. Elephants, rhinoceroses, hippopota-
muses . . . I was gripped, upon entering this collection,
What is most real for me are the illusions that I create by a feeling of happiness. As I advanced further, this
in my painting. feeling increased; it seemed to me that my very being

This silent power . . . first speaks only to the eye and

then takes hold of all the faculties of the soul.12

In some ways, the unevenness and freedom of the early

Journal, its lurching from one subject to another, its dramatic
ups and downs, its youthful exaltation and moroseness, its
spurts of energy, visible even in the handwriting, are reminis-
cent of the drawings from these years with their wild, fluid
line, their drama and energy, their centrifugal movement and
force (figs. 104, 105). “I now see that my mind in its first
thoughts must get worked up, undo things, try them a hun-
dred different ways, before reaching the goal which burns in
me. . . . If I haven’t writhed like a serpent in the hands of a
priestess, I come out cold.”13
When the Journal resumes in 1847, Delacroix is nearly
fifty years old. Age has tempered some of the passion and
energy. The grandiose allegories have been embedded in
stories and realized in paintings: “Barbarism dancing around
the pyre of civilization” has become the powerful Attila and
His Hordes Overrun Italy and the Arts, in the library of the FIG. 104. Journal, July 20, 1824. Ink on paper, each page 8 x 5 in. (20.2 x
Assemblé Nationale; “On the edge of the abyss, Time strug- 12.7 cm). Institut National d’Histoire de l’Art, Bibliothèque Jacques Doucet,
gles against Chaos” will soon become Apollo Slays the Python Paris (Ms 247, cahier 5, fol. 13 verso and fol. 14 recto)

DELACROIX AND HIS JOURNAL 237

 Study for The Death of Sardanapalus, 1827–28. Pen and brown ink, brown wash, 81⁄8 x 123⁄8 in. (20.5 x 31.4 cm).
FIG. 105.
Musée du Louvre, Paris (RF 5277 recto)

rose above the trivialities, the petty ideas and worries left, the trees themselves came in for their share of
of the moment. What a prodigious variety of animals, admiration, and they played their part in the feeling
and what variety of species, forms, functions, raisons of pleasure that this day gave me. I came back by way of
d’être. At every moment, what we take to be deformity the far end of the garden, along the quay. . . . I am
alongside what we consider gracefulness. Here, the writing this by the fireside, delighted to have stopped,
herds of Neptune: seals, walruses, whales, immense before coming home, to buy this diary, which I am
numbers of fish with their vacant eyes, their mouths beginning on a good day. May I often continue to write
gaping senselessly; crustaceans, spider crabs, turtles. down my impressions in this way. In doing so, I will see
Then the hideous family of snakes: the boa with its all that can be gained from noting and probing our
enormous body and tiny head, its elegant coils entwined impressions, when they are recalled.16
around the tree; the ugly dragon, the lizards, crocodiles,
alligators, the monstrous gharial whose jaws suddenly The difference between this beginning and that of the
taper and end at its nose with a strange projection.15 early Journal is striking. The earlier effort at resolve, self-­
mastery and self-­possession, the attempt to get hold of himself
After two pages naming the extraordinary multiplicity of and gain control of the wild mobility of his thoughts and
species, Delacroix concludes: emotions, has here become the opposite. The purchasing of
the diary and the breaking of the long silence are motivated
Why did I feel such emotion in seeing all of that?— by the dizzying variety of species and forms in the museum’s
It’s because I was taken out of my ordinary ideas, which displays, rich testimony to worlds beyond his own. The
are my whole world; out of my street, which is my later Journal is born when Delacroix ventures outside of
universe. How necessary it is to shake yourself up from himself and his petty ideas and worries, escaping the narrow
time to time, to stick your head out of doors. . . . As I confines of habit. The result is happiness and enthusiastic

238 DELACROIX
creativity—he takes pleasure in describing what he saw, run-
ning on for pages with a kind of delight in language—and also
a sense that something momentous has happened. As he
notes, he stopped and bought the Journal on the way home;
and he preserved the receipt from this purchase, which was
found among his papers 150 years later.
The later Journal reflects this openness of spirit:
Delacroix tries not to restrain his imagination, as he had done
earlier, but gives it free rein; he tries not to control his impres-
sions, but fleshes them out, letting his mind wander, and
following his thoughts in their meanderings and peregrinations.
He engages with a host of subjects—art, literature, music,
nature, politics, society, history, and humankind. As time goes
on, he rereads his old diaries and adds comments, making
some entries a collection of observations from different peri-
ods; he cross-­references the entries, creating rich thematic
networks on topics such as unity, imitation, and the sublime
(fig. 106). In 1857 he conceived the project of a Dictionary of
the Fine Arts, which he never finished but which he drafts in
the Journal.17 It is effectively a retrospective of the Journal, as
Delacroix extracts the themes discussed there and provides a
reference to the relevant date, themes ranging from “acade-
mies” to “varnish,” “Homer” to “Chopin,” “fresco” to “pho-
tography,” and “on the fragility of painting” to “how to
succeed in an art.” The writing is essayistic, based on the style Journal, November 16–17, 1857. Ink and pencil on paper, each
FIG. 106.
of his avowed master, the philosopher Michel de Montaigne, page 143⁄4 x 51⁄8 in. (37.5 x 13 cm). Institut National d’Histoire de l’Art,
which Delacroix characterized as “the moving picture of a Bibliothèque Jacques Doucet, Paris (Ms 253 [6])
human imagination . . . all the liveliness of impressions
expressed at the moment they are felt.”18 Such writing—
improvisatory, expansive and wide-­ranging, advancing and difference from the other arts and especially from literature.
reversing course, posing and counterposing—reflects an “The first merit of painting is to be a feast for the eye,” he
intellectual and moral complexity: “One is always surprised at writes in the very last diary entry, a remark much quoted by
the diversity of opinion among different people; but a man of later painters.21 But for Delacroix the visual feast is a bearer of
healthy mind himself conceives of all possibilities, he places thought. The art of painting imparts a double pleasure, for the
himself . . . at all points of view”; “Subtle minds . . . see all the eye and the mind; its material forms have meaning in them-
different sides of things.”19 selves as well as for the thoughts they inspire, thus complicat-
The American abstract expressionist Robert Motherwell ing and enriching the aesthetic experience. They are both a
credited “Delacroix’s alert and cultivated mind constantly reality and a representation:
rolling, like an ever-­changing tide, over the rocky questions of
l’art moderne” with being “a sustaining moral force in my inner [In painting], you delight in the representation of real
life,” a model for painters who were “preoccupied, when not objects as though you were actually seeing them, and at
making art, with thinking about what it is.”20 Painting is cer- the same time the meaning that the images hold for the
tainly a primary subject of the Journal. Delacroix comments mind moves and transports you. These figures, which
on his own paintings, those of his contemporaries and of past strike you at one level as being the thing itself, are like
masters, but also on the distinctive power of painting, its a solid bridge linking the imagination to the deep and

DELACROIX AND HIS JOURNAL 239

 mysterious sensation of which they are the sign; but a the last four months I have fled at daybreak and have
sign very different from the coldness of printed charac- run to this enchanting work, as though to the feet of
ters on a page. . . . [Painting is] a hundred times more the most cherished lover; what from afar appeared to
expressive, since, independent of the idea, the visible me easy to overcome in fact presents me with horrible
sign . . . is itself a source of the most lively pleasure. . . . and incessant difficulties. But how is it that this eternal
Those who think that when they have written “a foot” struggle, instead of beating me down, raises me up, and
or “a hand” they have inspired in my mind the emotion instead of discouraging me, consoles me and fills my
I feel when I see a lovely foot or a lovely hand are moments after I have left it? What a happy compensa-
strangely mistaken. Success in the arts lies in amplifying tion for what the good years have carried off forever;
and prolonging sensation, by all means possible.22 what a noble use of my old age, which already besieges
me from a thousand directions, but leaves me still the
As a spatial, atemporal art, painting can be seen in one strength to surmount the pains of the body and the
glance; its effect is concentrated and captivating; it would take afflictions of the soul.27
volumes to describe what a picture conveys in an instant.23
Unlike writing, which demands to be read in a certain order, Written a few months before the chapel was completed and
painting allows the viewer the freedom to experience the just two years before Delacroix died, the entry has something
work at will, to come and go among its parts and across its of the ardor and passion of the youthful Journal. Moreover it
surface, offering multiple and varied perspectives. Delacroix bears witness to an identification between the artist and his
describes it using the analogy of a climber on a hilltop who subject: it applies to his own enterprise the metaphors of the
surveys in one glance a vast expanse of landscape. Writing, in paintings in the chapel. Painting is the struggle that uplifts,
contrast, sets the climber on a single path, to encounter only like Jacob wrestling with the angel; it is the strength that raises
one or another of the many natural beauties available; it may up the artist besieged on all sides, like Heliodorus, by old age
even bypass the most important or interesting sights.24 The and death, exalting him through the “horrible and incessant
Journal’s essayistic writing is in this sense pictorial, reproduc- difficulties” with which it confronts him, and which he must
ing in words and in the movement of text the qualities of the overcome in a Jacob-­like struggle with the divine.
painted image: a writing adequate to painting, to a pictorial Such sustained personal and aesthetic reflection is inter-
vision of the world. woven with a fascinating portrait of nineteenth-­century
But painting, in the Journal, is not just a subject; it is a French society. Even on the material level, the Journal pre-
passion. “How I adore painting! Just remembering certain serves the details of daily life: press clippings, advertisements,
paintings fills me with a feeling that moves my whole being, addresses, train schedules, recipes, dried flowers or feathers.
even when I am not seeing them.”25 Soon after, Delacroix Delacroix’s distinctive position in that society—on the one
extends the metaphor: “I set to work the way others run to their hand, accepted by official circles, awarded important state
mistress, and when I leave it, I carry away . . . a delightful mem- commissions for public buildings, and elected in 1857 to the
ory which resembles but little the agitated pleasure of lov- Académie des Beaux-­Arts; on the other, a radical painter, a
ers.”26 Perhaps the most moving instance of this fervor occurs close acquaintance of scandalous artists like Baudelaire, the
at the beginning of 1861. After more than ten years at work on caricaturist Honoré Daumier, and the novelist George Sand—
his murals in the church of Saint-­Sulpice (see figs. 69, 70), brought him into contact with an extraordinary range of per-
Delacroix greeted the year with this entry: sonalities. For ten years he served on the Paris Conseil
Municipal over which Baron Haussmann presided, and in
I began the year by pursuing my work at the church, which the daily life of the capital, including the famous pro-
as usual. I paid no visits except by leaving cards . . . and gram of public works, was debated, usually to his dismay:
I went to work for a whole day. Oh, happy life, what a “The place de la Concorde has been completely dug up.
divine compensation for my supposed isolation! . . . They are talking about removing the Obelisk of Luxor. Périer
Painting harasses me, indeed torments me, in a thou- claimed this morning [at the Council] that it blocked the
sand ways like the most demanding of mistresses; for view! . . . When we are a little more like the Americans they

240 DELACROIX
will try to sell the Tuileries gardens, for being a vacant lot perusing anything that came his way: “You must always read pen
which serves no purpose.”28 He frequented artists, critics, and in hand. Not a day goes by that I don’t find in the most worth-
intellectuals: visiting Camille Corot’s studio and discussing less rag something interesting to note down.”33 The notes are
the value of an “improvisational” method, attending a private not just a record, but part of the very fabric of the diary: read-
reading of the libretto to Hector Berlioz’s opera in progress, ing is an exercise in self-­discovery, as Delacroix interrogates,
Les Troyens, at the composer’s house, ruminating on old age confirms, and revises his opinions through the texts of others.
with the ­effervescent Alexandre Dumas, and walking around For example, in 1856 while reading Edgar Allan Poe’s “Tales,”
the Jardin des Plantes looking at flowers for his paintings with translated by Baudelaire, Delacroix is at first intrigued, but
the botanist Adrien de Jussieu (cats. 110, 111).29 He was enter- nevertheless skeptical. He sees Poe’s fantastic and otherworldly
tained at the soirées of the bourgeoisie, complete with the stories as alien to the French imagination, which prefers “clas-
séances and “turning tables,” or proto-­Ouija boards, that were sical” values of reason, moderation, and verisimilitude. As he
all the rage. He chatted with his color merchant, settled bills continues, however, he comes to a different position. First he
with his suppliers, and took a walk in the country with his quotes lines from “Ligeia”: “In beauty of face no maiden ever
peasant housekeeper. He recorded nearly all his conversations equaled her. . . . Yet her features were not of that regular mould
with his friend Frédéric Chopin, whom he revered: “What a which we have been falsely taught to worship in the classical
loss,” he wrote when the composer died. “So many ignoble labors of the heathen. ‘There is no exquisite beauty,’ says [Bacon],
scoundrels walk the earth, while this beautiful soul has been Lord Verulam . . . without some strangeness in the proportion.’”34
snuffed out.”30 Delacroix underlines the latter sentence as though to signal
Delacroix hears about the strange music and radical his agreement. He then comments: “Reading this awakens in
political ideas of the newcomer composer Richard Wagner. me the sense of mystery that used to concern me more in my
He comments on the rise of mass transit, the mechanization of painting, and which I think has been neglected in my monu-
labor, the influence of religion in public affairs, the politics mental paintings, my allegorical subjects, etc. Baudelaire says
of consumerism and commercialism, and the benefits and in his preface that my work is the painterly expression of that
dangers of technology. peculiar sense of the ideal that takes pleasure in the terrifying.
He is right. . . .” This is a remarkable admission.
I read . . . in the paper that at Harvard they are experi- Baudelaire had made a rather outlandish comparison
menting with photographing the sun, the moon and between Delacroix and Poe, who “animate their figures against
even the stars. They have obtained from the star Alpha, violet or greenish backgrounds that give off the phosphores-
in the constellation Lyra, an imprint the size of a pin- cence of putrefaction and the whiff of a storm,” whose scenes
head. The letter which announces this result makes an translate the heightened sensations of an opium trance, and,
observation as correct as it is strange: that since the “bursting with light and color,” open up onto shimmering
light of the photographed star took twenty years to perspectives of Oriental cities and architectures “in a shower
reach Earth, the ray that was fixed on the photographic of golden sunlight.”35 One might have expected the reserved,
plate had left its celestial sphere long before Daguerre cerebral Delacroix to object to this odd comparison between
had discovered the means by which they captured it.31 himself and the provocateur Poe, who had been found dead,
seemingly from drink, in the gutter in 1849; nor would he
The discrepancy between cosmic and human time suggested normally admire its extravagant, overblown language. Yet he
here brings out the disjunction between nature and technol- agrees with Baudelaire, ultimately understanding something
ogy, between the long, slow temporality of the universe about the evolution of his painterly style that he had not previ-
and the frenetic pace of modernity, with its credo of speed.32 ously considered: the sense of mystery and terror, of brooding
Elsewhere he frets about the excesses of the free market, or luminous settings, of the supernatural in nature that had
about changes in the climate, about growing old. infused his earlier paintings but been abandoned in his recent
One of the Journal’s most interesting aspects is the many public commissions. The receding depths of The Battle of
reading notes that fill its pages. Delacroix was an avid reader, Nancy and the intensity of Cleopatra’s gaze in Cleopatra and the
from the great classics ancient and modern to the daily papers, Peasant come to mind as examples of this mystery and drama

DELACROIX AND HIS JOURNAL 241

(cats. 69, 95). But Delacroix’s remark also corresponds to a Fine Arts cross-­references it. Color, form, light, shadow, and
striking feature of his late work: his clear interest in, if not a perspective: these aspects of vision, these tools of the painter,
sense of mystery per se, at least an impression of grandeur and had philosophical implications that he explored through writing.
sublimity in nature. In the turbulent seas of Christ Asleep during Delacroix’s commitment to writing, the prominence of
the Tempest or Shipwreck on the Coast (cats. 129, 145), the vast the Journal in his life, even its sheer length, all raise the ques-
landscapes and imposing mountains of Ovid among the Scythians tion of why it mattered for this painter to write at all.
(cat. 142), Arabs Skirmishing in the Mountains (fig. 92) or View of
Tangier from the Shore (fig. 90), the dramatic skies of the November 8, 1857. When he really wanted to get clear
Lamentation over the Body of Christ (cat. 140) or An Arab Camp on his ideas, Napoleon put them on paper, knowing like
at Night (fig. 93), the luminous background of the 1851 Agony all men who have thought a lot about things, that to write
in the Garden (cat. 125), nature dominates the action and con- out your ideas is to probe them more deeply.
veys an impression of the sublime.
The Journal is replete with observations about nature, November 10, 1857. Voltaire wrote the following about
especially the sea, sky, trees, and mountains. One senses the the notes he took on his readings: they are an account
painter’s eye that perceives via color and form. In Dieppe in that I take for myself of my readings, the only way of
1854 Delacroix writes: “On my walk this morning I spent a truly learning and of getting clear on your ideas.38
long time studying the sea. The sun being behind me, the side
of the waves that rose up before me looked yellow and the As these entries indicate, and the Journal attests, writing was a
part that looked down reflected the sky. The shadows of source of ideas and an aid to reflection, allowing Delacroix to
clouds passed over all that and produced delightful effects; record his thoughts, then interrogate, refine, and revise them.
in the background, where the sea was blue and green, the But there is perhaps a more existential reason too:
shadows looked almost violet. . . .”36 His remarks bring out
the philosophical aspects of these material or sensual qualities. I’m reading a Life of Leonardo da Vinci. . . . I’m especially
For example, walking in the forest near his country cottage struck by the disappearance of almost all his works—
in Champrosay, twelve miles south of Paris, he notices from paintings, manuscripts, drawings, etc. There is no one
afar a large oak tree (figs. 107, 108): who has produced so much and left so little.39

At the distance necessary to take in all its parts, it seems Writing was a means of self-­preservation, a hedge against
of an ordinary size. If I stand under its branches, the oblivion. Delacroix was conscious of the ease with which
impression changes completely: perceiving only the works of art could be destroyed, and was especially aware of
trunk which I am almost touching, and the beginning the destruction of art during times of social upheaval. In a list
of its thick branches which stretch over my head like that he made of some of his paintings, he noted next to
the immense arms of this giant of the forest, I am Cardinal Richelieu Saying Mass: “the picture destroyed in the
astonished at the size of these details; in a word, I find Palais Royal,” that is, in the revolution of 1848.40
it grand and even frightening in its grandeur. Does this Moreover for Delacroix, a painter who wrote made a
mean that disproportion is a condition of our admiring special contribution to society. A passage about Joshua
something? If, on the one hand, Mozart, Cimarosa, Reynolds that he transcribed from an article is telling: “Men
and Racine cause less surprise because of the admira- gifted with the faculty of producing works which seem alive
ble proportion of their works, do not Shakespeare, are rarely capable of the deep, sustained reflection of which
Michelangelo, and Beethoven owe some of their effect the philosophical mind alone seems capable, as though action
to the opposite cause? For my part I do think so.37 excluded thought or at least limited it.”41 Delacroix sought to
disprove this rarity, and to embody the coexistence of action
Delacroix’s whole theory of the sublime is in this remark—the and thought. Their mutual exclusion was in his view danger-
grandeur that comes from disproportion, from a view close-­up; ous, leading to barbarism (action without thought) or empty
accordingly, the entry on the sublime for the Dictionary of the ideology (thought without action), which the turbulent

242 DELACROIX
 FIG. 107.Study of an Oak Tree,
1853(?). Graphite on paper, 43⁄8 x
65⁄8 in. (11.2 x 16.7 cm). Musée du
Louvre, Paris (RF 9427 recto)

FIG. 108. Study of an Oak Tree,

1857(?). Graphite on paper, 45⁄16 x
63⁄4 in. (10.6 x 17 cm). Musée du
Louvre, Paris (RF 9429 recto)

history of his own time had made all too clear. A painter-­ to it is work, and specifically “the mind constantly at work.”43
writer, in contrast, affirmed the compatibility of action and Earlier he had stated: “The secret of avoiding ennui, for me at
meditation, material and abstract, painting and philosophy. least, is to have ideas. Thus I cannot look hard enough for
In the end, all diaries are about time: passing time, ways to generate them.”44 Along with painting, the Journal was
recording time, reflecting on time. Delacroix’s assiduous Delacroix’s primary means for the generation of ideas—the
engagement with writing the Journal may have been an answer mind at work, freed from the domination of time and from an
to his oft-expressed dread of too much time, time without anxiety about time by making it valuable. After a near l­ifetime
value, what he calls “ennui.” The “terrible enemy,” ennui is a of diary writing, a simple sentence perhaps sums up best what
languor, a torpor, a spiritual emptiness that foreshadows death: Delacroix sought in this activity most of all: “The purpose of
“All my life I have found time too long.”42 The only antidote work is not just to produce things; it is to give value to time.”45

DELACROIX AND HIS JOURNAL 243

 Eugène and His Masters:
Becoming Delacroix
MEHDI KORCHANE

In an homage to Delacroix written shortly after the painter’s preserve the singularity of the great Romantic painter—his
death in 1863, Charles Baudelaire ventured an opinion that, idol—Baudelaire took care not to posit any direct lineage, nor
thirty years earlier, in the era of triumphant Romanticism, did he mention the young Delacroix’s elective affinities. Just a
would have seemed like a provocation to that movement’s few years earlier, in fact, Delacroix had confided to Théophile
supporters, who were eager to see the school of Jacques Louis Silvestre that from the age of fifteen he had preferred Pierre
David supplanted. “However different he may be from his Paul Prud’hon and Antoine Jean Gros to Pierre Narcisse
master Guérin in his method and color,” Baudelaire wrote, Guérin and Anne Louis Girodet-­Trioson.3
“he inherited from the great republican and imperial school a It is known that Delacroix was inclined to revise his own
love of the poets and a kind of furious rivalry with the written history when addressing posterity. To be sure, his attachment
word. David, Guérin, and Girodet were impassioned by the to Prud’hon’s art, his admiration of Gros, and his veneration for
writings of Homer, Virgil, Racine, and Ossian. Delacroix Gericault were genuine, but his memories cannot be taken at
movingly translated Shakespeare, Dante, Byron, and Ariosto. face value if we are to understand how he arrived in the world
A great resemblance, a slight difference.”1 Baudelaire placed of the arts and the debt he owed to his master Guérin and
subject matter over execution; not long before, an artist’s other representatives of the “republican and imperial school.”
manner of painting had seemed to be the gauge for evaluating Furthermore, however appealing Baudelaire’s assertion may be,
his art and appraising his innovation. Thus, within the space of it is too reductive to be accepted without careful investigation.
two generations, standards of critical judgment were inverted,
and Delacroix, who had launched Romanticism in the 1820s,
was named the heir to those whose fall he had precipitated. Delacroix and Guérin (1815–22)
In rehabilitating David and his followers by extolling
their literary sensibility, Baudelaire showed himself to be Guérin’s influence on Delacroix’s development as a revolution-
aligned with a movement that opposed the doctrinal drift ary painter has never been considered particularly important;
of the naturalistic aesthetic developed by Champfleury.2 But indeed, the matter has never been studied in depth. The aging
the cursory way in which he established the resemblance Delacroix chose to remember his master “with fond respect.”4
between Delacroix and his elders obscured all complexity. To However, in reporting to his old friend Louis-­Désiré Véron

245
the moment when he and Guérin had gone their separate dramatic painter of his day; he was also young, had a reputa-
ways, he intimated only a distant relationship: “I don’t know tion as a cultivated, worldly man, and, above all, as an author-
if he perceived any promise of talent in me, but he never ity in the teaching of art. The year 1816 appears to have been
encouraged me. In 1822, when I did Dante and Virgil, my first pivotal for Guérin: he turned down the position of director of
painting [for the Salon], I asked M. Guérin, out of deference, the Académie de France in Rome, offered to him by King
to come to my place and give me his opinion. He rarely Louis XVII, in order to devote himself to his studio and consoli-
offered me anything but criticism; I could never get him to date his position at the Salon. When Delacroix enrolled in the
support my wish to submit my first painting to the [Salon] Ecole des Beaux-­Arts on March 23, on Guérin’s recommenda-
exhibition.”5 There is no evidence to suggest that Delacroix and tion, his master had just filled the seat previously held there
Guérin communicated with each other once Delacroix left by David.8 Guérin assumed a decisive role at the restored
Guérin’s studio, much less to a relationship. Guérin excluded Académie des Beaux-­Arts, becoming the intellect behind the
his former pupil from his will, in which he bequeathed the painting section. In his report on the students’ submissions
contents of his studio to nine of his other former students. from Rome that year, he proposed a new vision for the
These two pieces of information support the idea of a rift academy’s doctrine, one that emphasized the study of nature
between the two men. A reconsideration of the facts will yield over the imitation of antique models—the latter a practice he
a more nuanced view, however. Although it would be point- felt had degenerated into sterile imitation.9 The imitation of
less to try to prove that Guérin and Delacroix were at all nature, by contrast, would prevent all pitfalls, whether of
close, certain factors show that the master’s teaching did indeed wooden style, the “craze for making paintings with paintings”
leave its mark. by copying ancient masters without discernment, or the odd-
The principal evidence, the importance of which must ity and bad taste that result from misguided inspiration.10 As
be weighed carefully, is the young Delacroix’s long affiliation Guérin sought not to found a school but, rather, to develop
with Guérin’s studio, which lasted seven years, from October the talent of each student by giving him the capacity to reflect
1815 to 1822. The fledgling artist probably produced his first on his own art—this was “the moral or intellectual part” of his
studies under the master even earlier, beginning in 1813.6 The teaching—and perfect his techniques, it is easy to appreciate
reasons for such constancy can be attributed as much to the benefit a candidate for the Prix de Rome could draw from
Delacroix’s personal relationships as to his art. Friendship was his lessons.11 It was from Guérin that Delacroix acquired his
vital to him: his parents had died by 1814, leaving him with lifelong practice of working each day from the live model,
only two immediate family members, a brother and a sister, substituting photographs for posing sessions when necessary
both much older, who lived in the provinces. The emotional so as not to miss what he called his “daily prayer.”12
support of his circle of lycée schoolmates, who would Initially, discipline of this sort must have seemed
accompany him throughout his life, would be complemented off-­putting to the young artist-­in-­training. The scarcity of
by that of his friends from Guérin’s studio: Charles-­Emile early academic drawings by Delacroix and the glimpse his
Callande de Champmartin, Léon Cogniet, Théodore Gericault, writings give of how he used his time during his first years of
and Ary Scheffer. Open to students all day long, the studio study reveal indecisiveness about his apprenticeship. Letters
was a place of camaraderie and stability for the uprooted he exchanged with his friends Achille Piron and Félix
Delacroix and a place where, in lean times, he could go to get Guillemardet during his months-­long holiday in Charente
warm, do odd jobs to earn a little money, and compose his show him to be, at an age when students aiming for the Prix
correspondence.7 That he frequented the studio over many de Rome typically redoubled their efforts, a hunter, a vora-
years, even irregularly, necessarily meant that master and cious reader, and a translator of English and Italian, but they
student were well acquainted. make no allusion to art.13 The novels and plays he wrote
With respect to Delacroix’s apprenticeship, Guérin between 1813 and 1819—Alfred, Les dangers de la cour,
seems to have offered the best guarantee of success to the Victoria—show the fervor with which he dedicated himself
aspiring history painter. Henri François Riesener, Delacroix’s to writing and how much that activity must have encroached
uncle, understood this and encouraged his nephew to join on his art practice, notwithstanding his capacity for hard
Guérin’s studio. This master was, after all, the foremost work.14 Indeed, when financial problems arising from his

246 DELACROIX
family’s bankruptcy compelled him to economize by living
in the provinces for long periods of time, thus keeping him
away from the studio, it was not through drawing that he
channeled his need to create. He seems to have wanted to
prolong his woolgathering years, to give himself over entirely
to his imagination, and to postpone the moment when he
would need to focus on a single pursuit. Such is the adoles-
cent whose portrait Gericault painted about 1815 or 1816
(fig. 109).15
It was not until September 1818 that Delacroix expressed
certainty about his future as an artist, and even then he
showed reluctance: “In truth, I can’t think without a heavy
heart of the long years I will be spending in Italy, far from
anyone who could take an interest in me.”16 Such sentiment
helps to explain why Guérin might have questioned the abili-
ties of the erratic and independent student, as compared to
those of Guillaume Bodinier, who practiced life drawing
morning and evening, with the intention of doing so “for a
long time yet.” Bodinier acknowledged “the impossibility of
doing anything without that” and rejoiced that he was being
led by “an infallible guide” without whose advice he “did not
want to take a single step.”17 Guérin’s opinion of his students
was surely affected by the ardor they showed for their work;
in 1816, Bodinier no doubt held a higher place in the master’s
esteem than did Delacroix.
Several things contributed to the young man’s change of
heart about 1818–19. Among them is an experience that has FIG. 109. Théodore Gericault. Presumed Portrait of Eugène Delacroix,
become a famous episode in Delacroix mythology: his observa- ca. 1815–16. Oil on canvas, 211⁄4 x 173⁄4 in. (54 x 45 cm). Jean-­Luc
tion of Gericault up close, in the heat of creating The Raft of Baroni Ltd., London

the Medusa, which would soon cause a sensation at the Salon

of 1819. Delacroix even participated in the work by posing as a
model for one of the figures. Gericault’s painting gave the been awarded initially to Gericault, who, loath to fulfill it,
young artist the first major aesthetic jolt of his life and hastened subcontracted the work to Delacroix in 1820 (fig. 110).
his recognition of the inferiority of his own literary efforts, at Gericault’s role in Delacroix’s formation as a painter is well
least insofar as his career was concerned. These experiences set known.18 It should be noted, however, that the import of
him on the path to maturity and enabled him to implement the Gericault’s influence has exerted an outsize sway over mod-
means for ensuring his success as an artist. His determination ernist critics, who, in omitting Guérin from their web of
was strengthened both by his need to support himself and by references and quotations, have somewhat obscured
an awareness that he had fallen behind friends such as Delacroix’s debt to him. Though the composition of The
Scheffer and Champmartin, who were already being awarded Virgin of the Sacred Heart owes a great deal to the model
public commissions. Nevertheless, it was not until 1822 that Gericault provided, it was in Guérin’s repertoire that
Delacroix set about launching himself as a professional. Delacroix found a motif for his own addition to the composi-
While training under Guérin, Delacroix seized on the tion.19 Dropped into the lower right-­hand corner are two male
opportunity to execute a large painting for the cathedral in figures in profile that likely derive from a drawing by Guérin
Nantes. The commission for The Virgin of the Sacred Heart had related to Clytemnestra, a painting that had caused a sensation

Eugène and His Masters 247

FIG. 110. The Virgin of the Sacred Heart (detail), 1821. Oil on canvas, overall Pierre Narcisse Guérin (French, 1774–1833). Studies for the Head
FIG. 111.
8 ft. 55⁄8 in. x 59 in. (258 x 152 cm). Cathedral of Our Lady of the of Aegisthus, before 1813. Black pencil and traces of white chalk on beige
Assumption, Nantes (J 153). The two figures in the painting’s lower right paper, 143⁄4 x 211⁄4 in. (37.5 x 54.1 cm). Musée des Beaux-­Arts, Angers
corner probably derive from Pierre Narcisse Guérin’s Studies for (inv. MBA 226 1 [1881] D). The drawing was made in preparation for the
the Head of Aegisthus, shown in fig. 111 figure of Aegisthus in Guérin’s Clytemnestra Hesitating before Killing the
Sleeping Agamemnon, seen in fig. 112

at the Salon of 1817 (fig. 112). From that double study, defender of the beau ideal might have been expected to shy
which shows the process Guérin employed in idealizing away from such procedures and to be more inclined to share
human physiognomy, Delacroix chose only the head on the the purist Ingres’s reservations about cadavers, confining
left, vigorously copied from life. With close attention, he himself to recommending the study of art treatises on anatomy
imitated the volume of the eyeball and the gleam of light that rather than the direct study of the human body. On the con-
intensifies the gaze. In the years that followed, he was among trary, Guérin not only counseled his students to observe
the students of Guérin—the others were Gericault, Cogniet, dissections in operating theaters—Paris provided several for
and Scheffer—who most perfectly assimilated the art of art students—but he also encouraged them to carry out the
communicating the passions, which their master was acknowl- dissections themselves, as Bodinier reported in 1816: “After
edged to possess to a high degree. The means for making the the hour of life drawing . . . I want to work dissecting at the
lustrous eye the epicenter of expression acquired a masterful school of medicine until dinner. M. G[uérin] recommends
force of persuasion in Delacroix’s Head of an Old Greek that I do it every day.”21 The evidence of these instructions
Woman (cat. 7) and Orphan Girl in the Cemetery (fig. 9). In provides an objective argument against the prevailing saturnine
December 1823, the artist visited the exhibition of Lucien interpretation of Gericault’s anatomical still lifes as an influ-
Bonaparte’s collection to examine Guérin’s Return of Marcus ence on Delacroix and helps to account for the large number
Sextus (1799; Musée du Louvre), “thinking I had only that one of écorché studies by him.22 It can be deduced from Bodinier’s
painting to see.” Undoubtedly, he believed he still had a statement that all Guérin’s students must have been encour-
lesson to learn from it.20 aged in the practice by their master’s demand for truth.
Of the advice that Guérin dispensed to his students, that Although it has been shown that none of Gericault’s known
relating to dissections has thus far gone unnoticed. The anatomical drawings were realized during a dissection, many

248 DELACROIX
 FIG. 112. Pierre Narcisse Guérin.
Clytemnestra Hesitating before Killing the
Sleeping Agamemnon, 1817. Oil on canvas,
11 ft. 23⁄4 in. x 10 ft. 8 in. (3.4 x 3.2 m).
Musée du Louvre, Paris (5185)

of Delacroix’s sketches were.23 Guérin warned, however, that in Guérin’s studio were not driven off by their master, as
this relation to the natural and to the truth of the human body Maurice Quai and his followers had been by David.27 It has
could also encourage too keen an attachment to the real, not been sufficiently emphasized that, notwithstanding
particularly among young artists accustomed throughout their Delacroix’s predilection for Gros’s art, the void created by the
youth to imagery like that found in Gros’s monumental, departure of Guérin, who was preparing to take over the
cadaver-­strewn depictions of the Napoleonic Wars. Gericault, directorship of the Académie de France in Rome, encouraged
in elaborating The Raft of the Medusa by means of life studies Delacroix to turn to the other master. As he reported in his
of anatomical fragments, developed aesthetically what had Journal on September 12, 1822, “In the last few days I have
been, under Guérin’s training, merely a utilitarian exercise; resolved to go to M. Gros’s studio, and that idea is very much
and Delacroix, far more under Gericault’s influence than on my mind—agreeably so.”28
Guérin’s, would explore in his early years the iconoclastic
path of representing the macabre, which in 1824 would culmi-
nate in his Massacres at Chios (fig. 5).24 Nonetheless, after Delacroix and Gros (1822)
completing The Barque of Dante in the spring of 1822, Delacroix
was “deferential” toward Guérin, according to Véron, and Although Delacroix continued to hold Gros in the highest
sought his advice.25 esteem throughout his life, accounts that have come down
It is certain that Delacroix, together with Champmartin, to us indicate that their relationship was as brief as it was
was one of Guérin’s “most disruptive” students, whose depar- intense. Delacroix’s surge of warm feeling ended in cruel
ture at the end of that year was welcomed by Guérin’s ser- disillusionment caused by the loss of a myth cherished since
vant.26 Yet they and other defenders of the aesthetics of excess youth. Gros zealously developed the cult of David after the

Eugène and His Masters 249

 constant effort, during his Davidian years, to dissimulate his
true nature.
Gros’s enthusiasm for the young painter of The Barque of
Dante was a dissonant episode in the otherwise reactionary
late stage of his career. In a well-­known account from 1853,
Delacroix described the master’s effusive response to his first
Salon painting and in doing so revealed the chink in the
armor that the doctrinaire painter had forged for himself:

I idolized Gros’s talent, which is for me, as I write you

and after everything I’ve seen, still one of the most
notable in the history of painting. I encountered Gros
by chance, and he, learning that I was the one who had
created the painting in question, paid me compliments
FIG. 113. Antoine Jean Gros. Study for Hercules and Diomedes, ca. 1835. Pen
with an incredible warmth. These have made me
and brown ink, heightening with reed pen, 71⁄8 x 87⁄8 in. (18 x 22.5 cm).
impervious to all flattery for life. In the end, after
Private collection
pointing out its merits, he told me that it was “Rubens
refined.” For this man, who worshiped Rubens and had
been brought up in the strict school of David, that
latter was exiled in 1816, perpetuating his pedagogy by taking represented the greatest praise. He asked if he could
over his studio. As Delacroix aptly analyzed the situation in an do anything for me. I asked immediately if he would let
article of 1848, those efforts precipitated the decline of the me see his famous paintings of the Empire, which were
painter of Napoleon Visiting the Plague Victims of Jaffa, resulting at that moment hidden away in his studio and could
in the self-­loathing and annihilation of personality that led not be shown in broad daylight because of the times
him, in 1835, to suicide.29 In a famous letter of 1820, David [the Bourbon Restoration] and the subjects. He allowed
ordered Gros to abandon the modern subjects that had made me to remain there four hours, with him and alone,
him famous and to paint “what is called a true history paint- amidst his sketches and preparatory studies; in a word,
ing.”30 In the fifteen years that elapsed between that moment he displayed toward me the greatest confidence, and
and Gros’s death, Gros strove to model his manner on the Gros was a very anxious and suspicious man. Personal
master’s beau ideal and, through the training of students, to motives on the great painter’s part may perhaps have
extend his legacy. Gros’s David Playing the Harp for King been mingled with that complete approval: I thought I
Saul (private collection), painted for the duc d’Orléans and detected later on, through a certain sharpness in Gros’s
exhibited at the Salon of 1822, was the first fruit of that forced dealings with me, that he had thought to take me under
and backward-­looking effort.31 Gros definitively abandoned his wing at his school to help me win the Prix de Rome.
the primacy of color adopted from Rubens in favor of a con- Although unassuming, I had by that time traced out my
ception of localized color more consistent with the classical path in another direction, and I declined his patronage.
tradition—that is, color subordinated to drawing. Inspired Later on, however, when his students, apparently to
by Guérin’s Clytemnestra, Gros focused his audacity on the flatter him, criticized my paintings in front of him, he
crimson chiaroscuro effect without managing to achieve the cut them off, not by defending my talent, but saying that
unity, harmony, or dramatic concentration of that painting. I was a perfectly upright young man and a good student.32
Drawing was the only area in which Gros gave free rein
to his innate tendencies, as indicated to the very end by his In his Journal of 1822, Delacroix expressed in crueler terms
brisk sketches made with an ink-­filled brush (fig. 113). He his grounds for turning away from Gros: “The torso and
allowed himself this liberty precisely because his drawings painting by [Auguste-­Hyacinthe] Debay, a student of Gros’s,
remained private. Those works are now seen to betray his a prize-­winning student, filled me with disgust for his master’s

250 DELACROIX
school, and just yesterday I wished it!”33 But clearly, Gros, the
rigid academician and staunch opponent of the new school,
seems to have had no desire to harm the painter of Massacres
at Chios.

The Delacroix Effect: The Masters’ Reaction

(1824–1833)

Eighteen twenty-­four was the year of the Romantic revolt at

the Salon, bookended by the deaths of Gericault and Girodet.
It was a year of crisis in the fine arts. Although an entire
generation was making its mark, Delacroix was perceived as
the one responsible for fomenting revolution. His Massacres at FIG. 114.François Gérard (French, 1770–1837). Horses Frightened by
Chios, which combined the aesthetics of excess with pictorial the Surf, 1830s. Oil on canvas, 1213⁄16 x 16 in. (32.5 x 40.5 cm).
virtuosity, riveted attention even as it elicited disgust and Private collection
horror.34 From that moment on, Delacroix effectively crystal-
lized the generational divide. His importance was measured Belisarius (location unknown) at the Salon of 1795, Gérard
by the yardstick of his imitators—Eugène Devéria, Alexandre reminded viewers that he, too, was a precursor.
Colin, Gillot Saint-­Evre, Joseph Guichard—and by the The warmth toward Delacroix of another senior acade-
amount of confusion his example sowed in the minds of mician, Guillaume Guillon Lethière, did not survive the
students, including the pensionnaires at the Académie de France exhibition of The Death of Sardanapalus at the Salon of 1827–
in Rome, heirs to a now-­threatened tradition.35 28. He is said to have boasted the following year that he had
The history of Delacroix’s critical reception in the 1820s driven a student from his studio for imitating Delacroix’s
is well known.36 Of relatively recent vintage, by contrast, are manner.40 Lethière was among the masters who intended to
studies of established masters’ reactions to the new manner of respond to the innovators with creations of their own, but he
painting, which many regarded as licentious, and the crisis was unable to complete his Death of Virginia in time for the
of legitimacy its rise provoked in the academic regime.37 Gros’s Salon of 1827–28. He sent that enormous work, which he
attitude toward the innovators was signaled in his invective painted in three years on the basis of a thirty-­year-­old design,
against Horace Vernet, whom he likened, in an impromptu to be displayed at the Egyptian Hall in London for two years,
speech at Girodet’s funeral, to a hack. François Gérard, the as had been done earlier with The Raft of the Medusa. Lethière
premier peintre to Louis XVIII, was much more indulgent, was therefore able to exhibit The Death of Virginia at the Salon
having lavished his congratulations and connections on of 1831 crowned with the success it had been accorded by the
Delacroix, welcoming him into his society in 1824.38 Gérard British, whose culture was greatly admired by the Romantics.
had assigned himself a strategic role in assembling all the Lethière’s painting is an example of the forceful return of
elites of society at the Salon. By modernizing his style and so-called classic Romanticism characterized by the repre­
presenting himself as open-­minded, he hoped not only to win sentation of a violent antiquity, frenetic pantomime, exagger-
the admiration of the younger generation but also to retain the ated shadows, and a drawing style that was more vigorous
esteem of the wider public. Two sketches recently brought than idealizing. But that “Romantic of thirty years ago”—
to light show that he experimented with Romantic vocabulary Charles Lenormant’s caustic epithet for Lethière—could not
using a freedom of brushwork that he might not have attempted win the battle for public opinion in a critical arena split by
without Delacroix’s example. Even so, it is not accidental that partisanship; the voices of the two camps canceled each
these sketches, Horses Frightened by the Surf (fig. 114) and other out.41
Sea Study, feature a crepuscular sky.39 In choosing this light, In Rome, Guérin had no direct contact with Delacroix
which had announced a new, pre-­Romantic sensibility in his (nor do they seem to have corresponded) but was nonetheless

Eugène and His Masters 251

 FIG. 115. Pierre Narcisse Guérin. The Death of Priam, or The Last Night of Troy, 1830–32. Oil on canvas, 14 ft. 43⁄4 in. x 20 ft. 73⁄4 in. (4.4 x
6.3 m). Musée des Beaux-­Arts, Angers (inv. MBA J 79 [J 1881] P)

affected by the negative publicity surrounding his former education in decline and ineffective government policy for
student. After the Salons of 1824 and 1827–28, the master encouraging artistic endeavor.43
attempted to contain the Romantic fever overcoming his Guérin formed his idea of Delacroix’s “School of the
charges at the Villa Medici—all of them Prix de Rome Ugly” while in Rome, at second hand.44 It was only upon
winners. They were dragging their feet more than ever in returning to France, in the autumn of 1829, that he discovered
completing their assignments at a moment when young inde- for himself Delacroix’s trailblazing works and the extent of his
pendent artists were monopolizing the Salon’s attention. influence. From that point on, Guérin envisioned The Death
Although their rivals, unburdened by academic obligations, of Priam, a project he was then in the process of reviving
aroused envy, it was Delacroix, above all, who gave them after a six-­year cessation of his artistic practice, as a retort to
pause, as evinced in a letter by pensionnaire Larivière late in those of his students who had wandered off onto the path of
1827: “Is it the manner of the great Delacroix or that of the Romanticism (fig. 115).45 In fact, only exponents of the aesthet-
cold David that we must follow?”42 At this time, however, ics of excess and Delacroix, the man who inspired them, were
Guérin was far less preoccupied with Delacroix’s disturbing the targets of his corrective undertaking. Léon Cogniet and
art than with the mediocrity of his own poorly trained and Ary Scheffer, despite their association with the new school of
easily influenced pensionnaires. He referred to them as “spine- painting, were among Guérin’s nine former students who
less talents, weak athletes who burden the profession without inherited the contents of his studio, an indication that the
being able to succeed at it”—products of an academic master considered them to be his artistic heirs. The Death of

252 DELACROIX
Priam was conceived not only as the summation of its maker’s
pictorial convictions, an encapsulation of his highest qualities
shown to best advantage, but also as a way to surpass David
and do battle with Delacroix. It was to be a rebuttal to David’s
Intervention of the Sabine Women (1799; Musée du Louvre)—
seen by detractors of the academy as the epitome of degener-
ate classicism—and of Delacroix’s Death of Sardanapalus.46
Color is the primary criterion that distinguishes Guérin’s
work from those of his two antagonists. From Guérin’s per-
spective, their mistake was to emancipate color from its purely
descriptive function: David, on the basis of an imagined
Greek purity; and Delacroix, by making “pictures with pic-
tures,” that is, through an overwrought imitation of the great
colorists of the past. In The Death of Priam, the artist carefully
managed color and chiaroscuro with the aim of exciting
the senses and thrilling the spectator; the work’s dramatic
effect and colossal scale were intended to amplify its impact Othello and Desdemona, ca. 1847–49. Oil on canvas, 20 x 241⁄2 in.
FIG. 116.

on the public. (50.8 x 62.2 cm). National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa (inv. 15700)
But Guérin died in 1833 before completing the painting,
and his student heirs hastened to secrete it away, probably
less from fear of its critical reception than from apprehensions
about how it would be received politically by the July an explicit reformulation of Guérin’s Clytemnestra, a work that,
Monarchy. It would not have been wise to exhibit an image of by virtue of its crimson chiaroscuro and its brutal subject—
the execution of a king before the eyes of Louis-Philippe, a the bloody assassination of Agamemnon—was in Delacroix’s
monarch embarrassed by its revolutionary origin.47 Had The youth the most audacious history painting in the antique
Death of Priam been displayed to the public, it most likely genre to be produced by the modern school. Also of note
would have met with the same generational prejudices that are the resemblances, perhaps slight but nonetheless intrigu-
greeted Lethière’s Death of Virginia two years before. ing, in the two men’s personalities. The traits they shared
Delacroix paid homage to Gros in an article acknowledg- may have made Delacroix the student of Guérin’s who was
ing him as one of the “most notable” talents “in the history most like his master: frail silhouette, delicate health, elegant
of painting.”48 But what did he retain from Guérin? From an bearing, good manners, a fondness for writing, the love and
ethical perspective, it is no small paradox that Guérin, out of practice of music (qualities and skills that made both artists
respect for the individuality of his students, refused to make sought after in the social world), moderate political opinions,
them his imitators or to employ them in executing his commis- and the choice to remain single, free from the contingencies
sioned works, whereas Delacroix, first of the Romantics, of family life that could have distracted them from art, to
after receiving major mural commissions, opened a studio which they devoted themselves exclusively. Like Guérin,
with the sole aim of training assistants in whom he stifled all Delacroix had the ambition, perhaps illusory, to belong to the
personal ambition.49 Although Delacroix’s artistic practice Académie in order to change its way of teaching and contrib-
differed greatly from Guérin’s, and though during his long ute to the progress of the art of his century. The resemblance
artistic maturation he turned to successive models, his Othello Baudelaire identified went beyond the field of literary inspira-
and Desdemona, for example, suggests that he was capable of tion. And in the end, it was in the natural order of things that
emulating his master’s poetic invention when he chose to this resemblance increased when Delacroix was no longer
(fig. 116). This Shakespearean painting from the late 1840s is young, or an innovator.

Eugène and His Masters 253

 Delacroix and the Exposition
Universelle of 1855
DOMINIQUE DE FONT-­R ÉAULX

In 1854, at the conclusion of an article on the sense of the liberty of adding to this list several paintings in a genre
beautiful—le beau—and on critics’ ability to define it— secondaire (a relatively minor genre), such as the Bishop
the author signed his name “Eugène Delacroix, of the Academy of Liège, Marino Faliero, the Women of Algiers in Their
of Amsterdam.”1 The same year, although Delacroix had been Apartment, A Shipwreck, and a Jewish Wedding.2
honored as recently as 1849 with commissions to adorn monu-
ments of his nation and his city of Paris, the Académie des Delacroix did not mention The Death of Sardanapalus (fig. 20),
Beaux-­Arts once again denied him membership. A long letter knowing the scandal caused by that painting was still fresh in
he wrote in 1849 to the engraver Jacques Edouard Gatteaux, the minds of many academicians. He claimed that, far from
then president of the Académie, reveals his dismay at already disdaining the models of the past, as he had been reproached
having been refused admission three times and his fierce for doing, he greatly admired them, as he had shown and
desire to highlight his accomplishments up to that point. While continued to show by taking the same liberties that the earlier
showing deference toward the masters who were affiliated masters had allowed for themselves.
with the renowned institution, Delacroix let it be known that The question of the validity of artistic judgment, of
his artistic production amply qualified him to be accepted as recognition granted or refused, of present or future glory, had
one of them: long preoccupied Delacroix.3 Ever since his debut at the
Salon of 1822, he had felt it necessary to be singled out and
I ask you, and them, to bear in mind a certain number commended, if not appreciated.4 As the years went by, his
of history paintings, including, among others, Dante desire for recognition increased. The painter feared he would
and Virgil, the Massacre of Chios, Christ in the Garden of be unable to complete projects already under way because he
Olives, The Justice of Trajan, The Entry of the Crusaders tired quickly; his concerns about his health sharpened his
into Constantinople, and Medea. I was also called upon to perception of the passage of time, feeding his doubts and anxi-
decorate the dome of the library of the Palais du eties. Delacroix also worried that without critical and official
Luxembourg, the vault and both ends of the library of support he would become an old man before his time, one
the Palais de l’Assemblée Législative, and, before that, whose audacity would pale next to that of the younger genera-
the Throne Room in the same building. I take the tion of artists wishing to make their names on the art scene.

255
Even so, the outlook was auspicious at the very end of 1847, France, Mother of the Arts
when, nearing fifty, Delacroix finally finished the decoration
of the library of the Chamber of Deputies in the Palais By 1852, Napoleon III had conceived the plan for a grand
Bourbon (which he referred to as the Palais de l’Assemblée Exposition Universelle in response to the pomp of the Great
Législative in his letter to Gatteaux), a commission awarded Exhibition held in London in 1851.9 A series of decrees issued
ten years before. in 1853 stipulated that a universal exposition of agricultural
Scarcely more than a month later, in February 1848, he and industrial products, open to all nations, was to be held.
was deeply shaken by the events that put a violent end to the The emperor also wished to accord a prominent place to the
reign of King Louis-Philippe. Delacroix feared the disorder fine arts, which had been consigned to lesser status in
that, in all likelihood, would follow. It seemed to him that, as London. He wanted to show off the talents of French artists to
in 1830, the hopes that had accompanied the street demonstra- the nations gathered together for the occasion and to cele-
tions would be dashed, and disappointment would bring new brate France as the Mother of the Arts. Originally, the
difficulties. He cautioned George Sand, who had contem- Exposition Universelle—the first ever held in Paris—was to
plated getting involved with the new regime, and wrote to his take place in 1854. It finally opened its doors on May 1, 1855,
childhood friend Charles Soulier one of his most deeply and closed five months later, on September 30.
moving letters.5 The emperor seems to have personally chosen the artists
to whom he would give special honors. Delacroix took full
Dear friend, I have not written you and yet I have not advantage of this support in a letter to Georges-­Eugène
forgotten you. Your letter, when it reached me, heart- Haussmann, prefect of the Seine, requesting to borrow the
ened me a little. We had just been witnessing a terrible large painting Christ in the Garden of Olives (The Agony in the
upheaval, and for nearly a month I felt as if an entire Garden) (see cat. 17) from the church of Saint-­Paul-­Saint-­Louis
house had fallen on my head.6 I am now resigned to it. for display at the Exposition. “The Emperor’s very express
I have buried the man I was, with his hopes and dreams intention, which he did me the honor of conveying personally,
for the future, and now I can come and go with a certain is for French artists to appear at the Exposition with all the
semblance of calm over the tomb in which I have shut works they deem appropriate to withstand competition from
all that away, as if I were a different person. . . . How the foreigners.”10 The support of Emilien de Nieuwerkerke, a
old we are, and how much this will age us! I have seen close friend of the imperial family who had been named
some of these zealots, and they were young.7 director of museums in 1849, was undoubtedly invaluable.
Delacroix knew him and saw him on a regular basis. He had
Like those close to him and other creative people of written to Nieuwerkerke on March 2, 1855, asking him to inter-
his time, Delacroix was keenly aware of having once belonged cede with the fine arts museums in Nancy and Rouen so that
to a new generation, and he realized that the Revolution of they would lend The Battle of Nancy (cat. 69) and The Justice of
1848 would give rise to yet another generation.8 In addition, Trajan (see fig. 35) to the Exposition.11 Delacroix was beholden
and more immediately, he was afraid that the political unrest to Nieuwerkerke for the commission of a large painting, Lion Hunt
would distract him from painting, a risk he was unwilling to (cat. 136), painted specifically for the Exposition. Furthermore,
take. Yet, despite his anxieties, the short-­lived Second it was by claiming to have the emperor’s authorization that
Republic was not unfavorable toward him. Napoleon Delacroix was able to exhibit Liberty Leading the People, known
Bonaparte’s rise to power in 1848 and his proclamation of as his Barricade for commemorating the July Revolution of 1830
empire in 1852 boded well for Delacroix, whose family had (fig. 26). The work had been displayed at the Salon of 1831 and
loyally served the new ruler’s uncle. acquired by the state, only to be placed in storage after demon-
strations in 1832 were violently repressed by Louis-Philippe’s
so-­called July Monarchy. Afterward, the painting was returned
to the artist, who lamented that it could not be shown.
Delacroix took great care in choosing each picture he
would exhibit at the Exposition’s Palais des Beaux-­Arts. He

256 DELACROIX
wished to assemble the key works of his career, beginning place in the rooms that are now allotted in their entirety
with his first success at the Salon in 1822, The Barque of Dante to Messieurs Ingres and Vernet. Age and talent confer
(see fig. 2). His selection included not only paintings that privileges that I do not dispute. But I am not a young
had been acquired by the state but also works in private man or an unknown. I would not have drawn these
hands. Those inspired by his stay in Morocco—Women of large paintings from the provinces, which entailed a
Algiers in Their Apartment (fig. 32) and Jewish Wedding in great deal of trouble and cost, in order to exhibit them
Morocco (fig. 31)—hung next to Liberty Leading the People, here in an unfavorable light.14
Entry of the Crusaders into Constantinople (fig. 36), and The
Justice of Trajan (fig. 35). Delacroix also accorded a place for Delacroix expressed his point of view with great composure.
works of more modest dimensions, such as Mary Magdalene in A note in his Journal, dated March 24, 1855, shows that he was
the Wilderness (fig. 122), which he had shown at the Salon of far more disappointed than he admitted. He turned to writing
1845, as well as two of the flower paintings he had exhibited at for the solace that the company of his contemporaries did not
the Salon of 1849 (cats. 109, 110). Through its diversity, the provide. “In my current state of lethargy, which has truly
selection showed to advantage his achievements over the reached a critical phase, when I see the time I have left to
course of thirty years, confirming Delacroix’s status as one of finish my paintings slipping away, I am very despondent at
the most important painters of his time. Finally, there was the how indifferent the people at this exhibition are about help-
special state commission for the exhibition, the monumental ing me. But then I take pleasure in withdrawing into myself
Lion Hunt, an homage to Rubens that affirmed Delacroix’s and, unable to get much assistance from the affection other
ability to master an extremely complex composition. Charles people have for me, I seek sustenance in the memory of my
Baudelaire celebrated this new feat by his favorite painter in own feelings.”15 Delacroix retained the force of his conviction,
the following terms: “The Lion Hunt is a veritable explosion of and he knew how to be persuasive despite his emotional
color (this word is intended in its positive sense). Never have distress and fragile health.16 Although he failed to secure a
more beautiful, more intense colors penetrated the soul room dedicated solely to his own works, he managed to have
through the channel of the eyes!”12 them installed in one of the two grand salons located at the
Certain works were missing, however—among them, entrance to the Palais des Beaux-­Arts, where they benefited
the large painted decorations that could not be removed from from good light (figs. 117, 118). He had written to Mercey: “I
walls and ceilings for the occasion. Also missing was The Death returned yesterday to the Exposition and, after looking again,
of Sardanapalus, which had been acquired nearly ten years asked whether my paintings could be placed in the smaller of
earlier by a Scottish industrialist based in France.13 Whether or the two grand salons devoted to French artists, in the part facing
not the large canvas could have been borrowed, it had pro- the entrance, together with the right-­hand corner. . . . I ask this of
voked the lasting indignation of the academic critics when it you, assuring you in advance of the satisfaction I would feel
was shown at the Salon of 1827–28. from the proper effect my paintings would have as a result.”17
The installation of the exhibition caused problems Delacroix appears here in his full complexity: ready to
for Delacroix. He was one of four living artists—the others ardently defend his works; tenacious and practical in achiev-
were Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, Horace Vernet, and ing his ends; urbane and extremely refined in his choice of
Alexandre-­Gabriel Decamps—who were to have major retro- words. He was all these things despite being plagued by
spectives, but the space allotted to Delacroix’s works did not ­anxiety, which nothing could mollify.
correspond to what he had been promised. He complained to Delacroix’s retrospective exhibition of 1855 was a suc-
Frédéric de Mercey, general curator of the exhibition: cess: the many visitors to the Paris event greatly admired his
paintings; he was named or promoted to Commander of the
I should like it very much if you would be good Legion of Honor; and the critics were unanimous in hailing
enough to find a time at your earliest convenience to his talent. Baudelaire was enthusiastic and full of praise, as
go to the Exposition. I will be there myself, with the he had been since 1845, when he first reviewed a Salon in
aim of obtaining from you a space suited to my paint- which Delacroix exhibited. Despite the critic’s penchant for
ings. I was blandished with the possibility of having a contrarianism, his opinion was fully shared in 1855. Baudelaire

Delacroix and the Exposition Universelle of 1855 257

 André-­Adolphe-­Eugène
FIG. 117.
Disdéri (French, 1819–1889).
View of the room devoted to
works by Jean Auguste
Dominique Ingres, Exposition
Universelle des Beaux-­Arts,
1855. Albumen print.
Bibliothèque nationale de
France, Paris (Rés-­VE-­611-­FOL,
vue 18)

Opposite: FIG. 118. André-­

Adolphe-­Eugène Disdéri. View
of the Salon Carré, including
works by Delacroix, Exposition
Universelle des Beaux-­Arts,
1855. Albumen print.
Bibliothèque nationale de
France, Paris (Rés-­VE-­611-­FOL,
vue 21)

had read Théophile Silvestre’s remarkable articles on living that by destroying it—if such a thing were possible—
artists, notably the one on Delacroix that had appeared in a whole world of ideas and sensations would be
the Revue des deux mondes in 1854.18 Like Silvestre, Baudelaire destroyed, and too great a gap would be blasted in
closed his essay with a reference to posterity, celebrating the chain of history.19
Delacroix’s place—the one the painter himself wished for—
as a man of genius within a prestigious pictorial tradition:
The Question of Modernity
How will M. Delacroix stand with Posterity? What will
that righter of wrongs have to say of him? He has now Delacroix’s recognition was complete, but perhaps too per-
reached a point in his career at which it is already easy fect. The young man who could “run across the rooftops,” as
to give the answer without finding many who disagree. François Gérard reportedly described Delacroix at his Salon
Posterity will say, as we do, that he combined the most debut in 1822, and who on the same occasion was singled out
astonishing faculties: like Rembrandt, he had a sense of for the originality of his talent by the painter Antoine Jean
intimacy and a profoundly magical quality; like Rubens Gros, had, in 1855, become a celebrated painter elevated to
and Lebrun, a feeling for decoration and for combina- the rank of model artist and awarded the highest national
tion; like Veronese, an enchanted sense of color, etc. distinctions.20 Owing to his masterful retrospective exhibition,
But that he also had a quality all his own, a quality Delacroix now seemed to be accepted without reservation
indefinable but itself defining the melancholy and the for his singular manner—the primacy of color in his work,
passion of his age—something quite new, which has the freedom of his brushstroke, the variety of his subjects.
made him a unique artist, without ancestry, without In the eyes of his contemporaries, he was a painter defined
precedent, and probably without successor—a link by a complex body of work, the themes of which required
so precious that it could in no wise be replaced; and extensive literary and historical knowledge in order to be

258 DELACROIX
understood. He no longer seemed so audacious a representa- painters. But despite Ingres’s seniority—he was born in
tive of his day. Comparisons with his rival, Ingres, no longer 1780—and central position in academic circles from his earli-
offered the point and counterpoint that had fueled the pas- est years, Delacroix no longer faced off against him as either a
sions of opposing factions during the Salons of the 1820s. young man or a rebel. A look at how they chose to present
Ingres, too, was celebrated, honored, and rewarded in 1855. themselves at the Exposition Universelle reveals that it was
Despite Baudelaire’s admiration for Delacroix, which was Delacroix who claimed to be the great history painter, able to
absolute, the critic, in his review of the Exposition take on the grand sujet, with Ingres once more proving himself
Universelle, opened the section devoted to the artist not by a portraitist of genius. Delacroix’s talent was remarkable, but
contrasting him to the painter of The Apotheosis of Homer, as he he appeared in 1855 as an artist whose modernity, at a time
had done in other texts, but by recognizing both men as when it was necessary to be modern, seemed difficult to define.
essential actors on the art scene of their time. “MM. Eugène
Delacroix and Ingres share between them the support and the
antipathy of the public. It has been a long time since popular Delacroix and Courbet
opinion first drew a cordon around them, like a pair of wres-
tlers. But without acceding to this childish and vulgar love of That year, the novelty—the brio—came from another painter,
antithesis, we must begin with an examination of these two one a generation younger than Delacroix. Gustave Courbet
French painters.”21 The lines Baudelaire devoted to Ingres’s had succeeded not only in getting eleven of his paintings
retrospective exhibition were no less positive than those he accepted to the Salon of the Palais des Beaux-­Arts but also in
had written about Delacroix; indeed, they came first: “But convincing Alfred Bruyas, a patron of the arts from Montpellier
today we are faced with a man of an immense and incontest- and a collector of Delacroix’s, to finance the construction of
able renown whose work is much more difficult to understand an independent pavilion, the Pavilion of Realism, devoted
and explain.”22 Obviously, one could not confuse the two entirely to a solo exhibition of his work.23 Courbet’s art had

Delacroix and the Exposition Universelle of 1855 259

 Gustave Courbet. The Painter’s Studio (after restoration), 1855. Oil on canvas, 13 ft. 81⁄4 in. x 21 ft. 51⁄2 in. (4.2 x 6.5 m).
FIG. 119.
Musée d’Orsay, Paris (RF 2257)

been admitted to the Salon for the first time in 1844. In 1849, admired the beauty of his treatment of the landscape, he
his After Dinner at Ornans was awarded a gold medal, affording remained highly circumspect about the unexpressed connec-
him the privilege of displaying any works of his choice at the tions between the two women, the large bather seen from the
following Salon.24 But the exhibition of his monumental canvas back, undressed, and her companion, a servant or attendant.
A Burial at Ornans at the Salon of 1850–51 incurred the wrath The gesture that the bather directs toward her companion has
of the critics, triggering a reaction reminiscent of the one an expansiveness somewhat reminiscent of Christ’s Noli me
that had erupted over Delacroix’s Sardanapalus twenty-­three tangere to Mary Magdalene; in an 1840 painting by Delacroix,
years before.25 And in 1855, Courbet’s outcry at the rejection Hamlet employs the same gesture toward Ophelia.28 Of the
of his outsize work The Painter’s Studio (fig. 119) from the Courbet, Delacroix wrote: “She is making some meaningless
Salon of the Exposition Universelle—even though his contri- gesture, and another woman, presumably her maid, is seated
bution to the exhibition was far more extensive than what had on the ground taking off her shoes and stockings. You see the
been granted to the majority of painters of his generation— stockings; one of them, I think, is only half removed. There
recalled the way the young Delacroix had complained at seems to be some exchange of thought between the two
having been snubbed from 1827 onward, despite his many figures, but it is quite unintelligible. The landscape is extraor-
public commissions.26 dinarily vigorous.”29
Delacroix was not unappreciative of Courbet’s talent, In 1855, Delacroix visited Courbet’s Pavilion of Realism,
but he nevertheless kept a certain distance. On April 15, 1853, where he once again saw The Bathers, among the other works
he noted in his Journal that he been to the Salon to see the on display. By his own admission, he spent a long time admir-
younger artist’s paintings and proceeded to write lengthy ing The Painter’s Studio, which was too large and had been
ruminations on them.27 His critique of The Bathers was ambiva- submitted too late for inclusion in the Exposition Universelle.
lent, in part owing to ambiguities in the work. While he The painting’s rejection is what prompted Courbet to have a
recognized the force of the painter’s talent and especially space built solely for his own works. Delacroix wrote:

260 DELACROIX
 Afterwards I went to the Courbet exhibition. He has what had been Delacroix’s role in the renewal of painting;
reduced the price of admission to ten sous. I stayed sharply intuitive, he undoubtedly knew that he was adopting
there alone for nearly an hour and discovered a master- the audacious manner that the Romantic painter had himself
piece in the picture which they rejected; I could chosen. In 1852, writing to his family about his fellow artists’
scarcely bear to tear myself away. He has made enor- unfavorable reactions to Young Ladies of the Village (1851–52;
mous strides, and yet this picture has taught me to Metropolitan Museum), shown at that year’s Salon, he railed
appreciate his Burial. In this picture [The Burial] the against what he presumed to be Delacroix’s attitude: “The
figures are all on top of one another and the composi- painters are furious, they hadn’t taken it [my art] seriously.
tion is not well arranged, but some of the details are They don’t come to see me [my work] as they did last year.
superb, for instance, the priests, the choirboys, the They feel they have been taken in and that I have got the
vessel for holy water, the weeping women, etc., etc.— better of them. Even Delacroix went to the ministry
In the later picture [The Painter’s Studio], the planes are to knock my painting (this comes from Romieu). The man is
well understood, there is atmosphere, and in some amazed that he is less talked about than he used to be.”35
passages the execution is really remarkable, especially Writing to the poet Victor Hugo after the scandal of The
the thighs and hips of the nude model and the Return from the Conference, a painting widely disparaged and
breasts—also the woman in the foreground with the refused even by the Salon des Refusés of 1863, Courbet,
shawl. The only fault is that the picture, as he has associating Hugo with the recently deceased Delacroix, empha-
painted it, seems to contain an ambiguity: it looks as sized that he belonged to a generation different from theirs.
though there were a real sky in the middle of the “When Delacroix and you were in your prime, you did not
painting.—They have rejected one of the most remark- have, as I do, an empire to say to you, ‘Outside of us there is
able works of our time; but [Courbet] is not the type no salvation.’ . . . Delacroix never saw soldiers force them-
to be discouraged by so little.30 selves into his home on a minister’s orders and pour turpentine
over his paintings. . . . He did not have that pack of mongrels
Such elaborate recognition and praise are rare in Delacroix’s howling at his heels, in the service of their mongrel masters.
writings. He had been an attentive visitor to the Exposition; The battles were about art, about questions of principle; you
in a letter to Paul Huet, he warmly congratulated his friend were not threatened with banishment.”36 Exaggeration,
for the choice of the works exhibited, especially his large whether of the criticisms directed at him or the abuses heaped
Flood at Saint-­Cloud (1855).31 “I hope you will be pleased by
what everyone tells you,” he wrote, “because my judgment
is the same as what I heard from everyone who saw them.”32
He went several times to the section devoted to the English
school; he had not forgotten his early years under British
influence, which he always remembered with a nostalgia-­
tinged pleasure that elated him. Delacroix appreciated that
in the works of the English artists “nearly every object is
depicted with the attention it deserves.”33 He was particularly
enthusiastic about Our English Coasts 1852 (Strayed Sheep) by
the Pre-­Raphaelite artist William Holman Hunt: “I spent
until about noon examining the paintings by English artists,
which I admire a great deal; I am truly amazed by Hunt’s
Sheep” (fig. 120).34
Conversely, Courbet, in the letters he wrote to his
friends and loved ones, betrayed a certain cruelty of judgment FIG. 120. William Holman Hunt (English, 1827–1910). Our English Coasts
toward Delacroix. Driven by a fierce determination to make 1852 (Strayed Sheep), 1852. Oil on canvas, 17 x 23 in. (43.2 x 58.4 cm).
his mark, Courbet was aware that he was implicitly assuming Tate Britain, London, Presented by the Art Fund, 1946 (inv. N05665)

Delacroix and the Exposition Universelle of 1855 261

upon him, was a common rhetorical tactic of Courbet’s, as the beauty of their colors. Courbet may have had the opportu-
was, conversely, pompous boasting of his successes.37 His aim nity to admire Delacroix’s still lifes once again in May 1862,
was to set himself apart as a unique figure, one whose battles when they were exhibited at the Galerie du Cercle des Beaux-­
were more difficult, more complex, and waged with more Arts, before he left Paris for a sojourn in Saintes, near
courage and talent than those of the artists who had preceded Bordeaux.38 Once there, Courbet would paint The Trellis, or
him—Delacroix above all. Even so, Courbet evidently Woman with Flowers (fig. 121), in which he infused the interlac-
regarded the painter of Sardanapalus as a role model in his ing flowers that a young girl is arranging on a lattice with an
strategy of provocation and scandal. exuberance that rivals the older painter’s.
Although Courbet said nothing about it, Delacroix Like Delacroix, Courbet paid close attention to form and
served him on several occasions as an artistic role model as color and to relations between the two to arrive at a dazzling
well. If, unlike the older painter, Courbet did not reveal his floral palette. He painted bouquets or groups of flowers sev-
own response to the Exposition Universelle, it is nevertheless eral times during the 1860s, creating a group within his corpus
certain that he not only saw Delacroix’s assembled works that remains little studied but whose echo of Delacroix is
there, but also that he observed them carefully and admired distinct.39 In 1871, during Courbet’s imprisonment at Sainte-­
them. Delacroix’s influence on Courbet’s painting, beginning Pélagie and in the months that followed, his references to
in the late 1850s, is clearly evident. This topic has not yet been Delacroix were perhaps more personal and even painful. Just
the subject of in-­depth study, but the few reflections that as the Romantic painter, anxious about the events of 1848 and
follow will, it is hoped, stimulate focused attention. The remark- frightened by the passage of time, had chosen to paint flowers,
able flower pictures exhibited by Delacroix in 1849 (cats. 109, an ostensibly uncontroversial subject that kept both reality
110) and again in 1855 surely captivated Courbet by their and history at bay, Courbet, at the most tragic moment of his
freedom of composition, vibrant and loaded brushstrokes, and life, produced the moving series of still lifes with fruit and

Gustave Courbet. The Trellis,

FIG. 121.
or Woman with Flowers, 1862. Oil on
canvas, 431⁄4 in. x 531⁄4 in. (109.9 x
135.3 cm). Toledo Museum of Art,
Purchased with funds from the Libbey
Endowment, Gift of Edward
Drummond Libbey (1950.309)

262 DELACROIX
 Mary Magdalene in the Wilderness, 1845. Oil on canvas, 217⁄8 x 173⁄4 in. (55.5 x 45 cm). Musée National
FIG. 122.
Eugène-­Delacroix, Paris (inv. MD 1990-­4)

flowers—cut flowers, splendid and colorful, but condemned beautified by the spasms of divine love,” as Baudelaire
to a brief life, caught up in an ineluctable decay, a reflection describes her with both sensitivity and bombast, certainly
of the artist’s own desolation.40 intrigued Courbet.41 In this painting, Delacroix invented a
Mary Magdalene in the Wilderness (fig. 122), “with her resolutely unique variation on a theme that painters had
strange, mysterious smile, and so supernaturally beautiful that seized upon since the Renaissance, a pretext to flaunt the
you cannot tell whether she has been transfigured by death or female nude under the guise of a religious subject. Unlike his

Delacroix and the Exposition Universelle of 1855 263

FIG. 123. Gustave Courbet. Jo, La Belle Irlandaise, 1865–66. Oil on canvas, 22 x 26 in. (55.9 x 66 cm). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, H. O. Havemeyer
Collection, Bequest of Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer, 1929 (29.100.63)

predecessors, the artist avoided the sensual nudity typical of with genius. Only the title, provided by Delacroix himself
the sinner-­saint by painting only her head and upper torso, when the painting was first exhibited at the Salon of 1845,
albeit falling backward in a kind of lover’s swoon, spirited away identified her as Mary Magdalene, Christ’s beloved. Just a bit
by religious ecstasy, perhaps abandoned in death. He played of blue sky in the upper part of the canvas reveals that she
cannily on the character of Mary Magdalene, harlot and holy really is in the desert, having come to die, according to legend,
woman, combining in the description of her face, with its in a cave in Sainte-­Baume, in the South of France. Delacroix’s
harmonious features, the signs of sensuality—the fleshy Magdalene appears to be a severed head, which suggests the
mouth; heavy, half-­closed eyelids; voluminous loose hair— possibility of violence.
and those of the sacred, including the straight nose, well-­ In 1865, when Courbet painted Jo, La Belle Irlandaise
defined arch of the eyebrows, and high forehead synonymous (fig. 123), modeled after Joanna Hiffernan, the mistress of his

264 DELACROIX
friend James Abbott McNeill Whistler, he clearly remem- The successes of the Exposition Universelle of 1855 and
bered the woman depicted by Delacroix. Jo shares with Mary the threat of a new, up-and-coming generation spurred him
Magdalene the abundant flowing hair, heavy eyelids, straight on. He therefore managed to impose a singular vision of the
nose, and elegantly arched brow. The composition truncates themes he had chosen, composing a modern, aesthetic, and
the young woman’s body just as Delacroix’s does Mary intimate struggle. By their power and determination, the two
Magdalene’s. Courbet retained the Romantic painter’s auda- men facing off in Jacob Wrestling with the Angel evoked combat-
cious metonymic procedure. His beautiful, distant lover is ants of antiquity, Theseus and Herakles; they also seemed to
entirely absorbed in observing her face in a mirror. Like the echo Gustave Courbet’s Wrestlers (1853; Szépművészeti
elder painter, Courbet, through the representation of youth Museum, Budapest), which Delacroix had seen at the Salon of
and charm, played on the evocation of a memento mori. 1853. The older artist thus showed the younger one that he had
lost none of his vigor or his talent for transcending painted
scenes. Hardly more than a few weeks after Delacroix’s death,
To Each His Own Delacroix however, Henri Fantin-­Latour, in a tribute to the older artist,
began a masterly canvas that has come to be regarded as a
By 1822, Delacroix had shown artists a new path of self-­ manifesto of the modern pictorial tradition: Homage to
affirmation outside academic circles, a freedom of choice in Delacroix (1864).44 This group portrait is also an homage to
subject matter and pictorial manner. He was the first to have put the talent of the young representatives of the “new painting,”
up resistance in the face of criticism, but the path he helped to such as Edouard Manet and James Abbott McNeill Whistler,
blaze opened up new avenues that he did not take. Until the end and to the audacity of the critics of the time, namely Charles
of his life, he remained faithful to literary, religious, and histor- Baudelaire, Champfleury, and Edmond Duranty. Evoking
ical subjects, themes that had been his choice from the outset. Velázquez, Goya, and Courbet, Fantin painted himself at work,
The paintings he exhibited at what would be his final Salon, implicitly transforming what is otherwise an indeterminate
in 1859, especially Ovid among the Scythians (cat. 142), were place into an artist’s studio. In celebrating the genius of
harshly criticized, especially by Maxime du Camp. It seemed Delacroix, he endeavored to glorify the legacy attached to the
that Delacroix, aware of the revolutions in landscape painting Romantic artist’s prestige and bearing, which Fantin’s genera-
to which this Salon gave its blessing, had opted for a classical tion had assumed as its own. In his Homage, Fantin endowed
tradition that linked the representation of nature to mythological the theme of artistic transmission with the significance of
and historical subjects.42 Although sometimes defying this tradi- history painting itself, exalting the status of his models, among
tion and often transcending it—as was the case in the two large whom he figured as well. This homage to Delacroix was
paintings he was then executing in the church of Saint-­Sulpice, followed by many more: Paul Cézanne, Aimé-­Jules Dalou,
Jacob Wrestling with the Angel and Heliodorus Driven from the Odilon Redon, and Maurice Denis, among others, composed
Temple (figs. 69, 70)—Delacroix remained faithful to a picto- works celebrating the artist they admired. Few artists have ever
rial heritage he knew perfectly.43 In Saint-Sulpice, Delacroix stirred such a passionate response following their deaths.
succeeded brilliantly at synthesizing his own works, which Delacroix, having died without students, nevertheless did
provided inspiration for the three paintings in the chapel, with have heirs. The diversity of the tributes that his followers paid
those of the masters he admired, especially Raphael, Titian, him points to the freedom that his oeuvre—triumphantly
Rubens, and Claude Lorrain. There, his mature talent combined summed up at the Exposition Universelle of 1855—offered to
with the desire for a new challenge, in which the painter, now those who appreciated it.45
in his sixties, recovered the passion of his youth.

Delacroix and the Exposition Universelle of 1855 265

 Notes

Abbreviations 20. See Louvre, 5180. 49. Delacroix 2009, vol. 2, p. 1738; see also Allard in
INHA (Institut National d'Histoire de l'Art) 21. The Gericault painting is Louvre, 4885. Paris 2004, p. 83.
BnF (Bibliothèque nationale de France) 22. See Allard 2005, pp. 19–20. 50. Thiers 1822, p. 4.
23. See the essay by Mehdi Korchane in the present 51. Allard and Chaudonneret 2006, p. 86.
Some paintings are identified by their catalogue volume; and see Allard and Chaudonneret 2010, 52. Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, p. 137 (April 11, 1824);
raisonné number in Johnson 1981–2002, abbreviated pp. 116–22. translation adapted from Delacroix 1995a, p. 31.
as “J” followed by the number. 24. Delacroix 1935–38, vol. 1, p. 141 (letter to Soulier, 53. See Allard 2011, p. 53.
April 15, 1822). 54. Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, p. 137 (May 11, 1824);
25. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 132 (letter to Soulier, September 15, translation adapted from Delacroix 1995a, p. 40.
Sébastien Allard and Côme Fabre, 1821). 55. Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, p. 90 (October 8, 1822);
The Sphinx of Modern Painting 26. Louvre, 4884. translation from Delacroix 1995a, p. 7.
“Fame Is Not an Empty Word”: 1822–32 27. See Allard and Chaudonneret 2010, pp. 52–55. 56. Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, p. 102 (May 24 or 31,
28. Delacroix 1935–38, vol. 5, pp. 106–7 (letter to his 1823); translation adapted from Delacroix 1995a, p. 15.
1. Charles Henry Delacroix, the artist’s elder brother, sister, Henriette, February 9, 1822). 57. Delacroix 1935–38, vol. 1, p. 132 (letter to Soulier,
owned a small estate in Le Louroux, about 170 miles 29. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 141 (letter to Soulier, April 15, 1822). September 15, 1821).
southwest of Paris. 30. See Marie Philippe Coupin de La Couperie’s 58. Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, p. 113 (January 12, 1824).
2. Thiers 1822, p. 4; Etienne Jean Delécluze in The Ill-­Fated Love of Francesca da Rimini (Napoleon 59. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 132 (April 3, 1824).
Le moniteur universel, May 8, 1822. Museum Thurgau, Schloss und Park Arenenberg, 60. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 136 (April 9, 1824); translation
3. Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, p. 150 (April 29, 1824); Salenstein), exhibited at the Salon of 1812. adapted from Delacroix 1995a, p. 29.
translation adapted from Delacroix 1995a, p. 36. 31. Ms 246 (15), Bibliothèque de l’INHA. 61. Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, pp. 155–57 (May 7, 1824);
4. Delacroix 1954, p. 38 (letter to Achille Piron, 32. Translation of Dante’s Inferno, canto 3, and translation adapted from Delacroix 1995a, p. 39.
November 11, 1815). Charon Rowing His Oars to Gather Up the Souls of 62. Fraser 1998.
5. “Think about strengthening your principles. Cowards to Force Them across the River Acheron. From 63. Letter from Forbin to Sosthène de La
Remember your father and overcome your flighti- untitled sketchbook, folios 34 verso and 35 recto, Rochefoucauld, September 6, 1824; Archives
ness.” Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, p. 83 (September 12, ca. 1818–22. Louvre, RF 23356. Nationales, O3 1413.
1822); translation adapted from Delacroix 1995a, p. 4. 33. Delacroix 1954, p. 78 (letter to Félix 64. See Chaudonneret 1999, p. 136.
6. Delacroix 1935–38, vol. 5, pp. 119–21 (letter to his Guillemardet, September 23, 1819). 65. Delacroix 1846, p. 437.
sister, Henriette, May 13, 1822, Bibliothèque de 34. On the genesis of the work, see Paris 2004. 66. Marie Mély-­Janin in La quotidienne, September 12,
l’INHA). 35. Delacroix 1954, p. 108 (letter to Guillemardet, 1824.
7. Delacroix 1954, p. 38 (letter to Piron, November 2, 1819). 67. See Allard 2010.
November 11, 1815). 36. Hugo’s text would come to be regarded as a 68. Chauvin 1825, p. 13.
8. Eugène Delacroix, “Cahier de classe,” INHA, manifesto of the Romantic movement. 69. Pierre Ange Vieillard said as much in his review
Bibliothèque Jacques Doucet, Ms 246-­10, fol. 9 recto. 37. See Louvre, RF 23356, fols. 34 verso and 35 recto. (1825, p. 15): “The last salon was no less commendable
9. Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, p. 84 (September 19, 1822). 38. See Allard 2010. for the choice of subjects displayed by our history
10. See the essay by Mehdi Korchane in the present 39. Delacroix 1935–38, vol. 1, p. 31 (letter to Jean-­ painters than for the merit of their execution.”
volume. Baptiste Pierret, November 6, 1818). 70. Stendhal 2002, p. 93.
11. See Chaudonneret 1999. 40. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 78 (letter to Pierret, October 2, 71. Thiers 1824, p. 27.
12. David had voted in favor of the execution of 1820). 72. See Louvre, 5064.
Louis XVI. 41. Letter from Delacroix to Piron, August 20, 1815. 73. Thiers 1824, p. 27.
13. See Allard and Chaudonneret 2010. 42. [Arnold Scheffer] (unsigned), “Salon de 1827,” 74. Landon 1824, p. 54.
14. Auguste de Forbin, in Néto 1995, p. 70 (letter to Revue française 1 (1828): 197. 75. Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, p. 114 (January 18, 1824).
François Marius Granet, May 31, 1821). 43. Musée du Louvre, Paris, Département des Arts 76. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 116 (January 24, 1824); translation
15. Delacroix 1935–38, vol. 5, p. 91 (letter to his sister, Graphiques, RF 23356; see fols. 34v and 35r. adapted from Delacroix 1995a, pp. 21–22.
Henriette, July 26, 1821). 44. Etienne Jean Delécluze in Le moniteur universel, 77. Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, p. 118 (January 26, 1824).
16. See Le Men 2018. May 3, 1822. 78. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 124 (March 3, 1824); translation
17. Delacroix 1935–38, vol. 5, pp. 51–54 (letter to his 45. Thiers 1822. adapted from Delacroix 1995a, p. 26.
sister, Henriette, May 30, 1820). 46. Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, p. 138 (April 11, 1824); 79. Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, p. 125 (March 5, 1824).
18. Ibid., vol. 1, pp. 125–30 (letter to Charles Soulier, translation adapted from Delacroix 1995a, p. 31. 80. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 143 (April 18, 1824); translation
April 30–July 30, 1821). 47. Yale University Art Gallery, 1962.25; Louvre, adapted from Delacroix 1995a, p. 33.
19. Ibid., vol. 1, pp. 119–24 (letter to Soulier, 20369. 81. Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, p. 154 (April 20, 1824).
March 30, 1821). 48. Bruyas 1876, p. 361. 82. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 163 (May 28, 1824).

267
83. See the study of the model known as Le Polonais, Sciences, Lettres et Arts de Nancy by MM. Caumont, Driven to Greatness: 1833–54
who is depicted standing, with his hand on his heart, de Haldat, and Laurent (Service de Documentation
his head turned, and wearing an expression of du Musée des Beaux-­Arts, Nancy). 1. Gautier 1838, p. 3.
indignant anger. Louvre, on deposit at the Musée 118. Jal 1828, p. 111. 2. Planche 1836 (1855 ed.), pp. 23–24.
National Eugène-­Delacroix, RF 1953-­40. 119. Vitet 1826, p. 372. 3. Delacroix 1935–38, vol. 2, p. 4 (letter to Charles
84. See the X-­radiographic studies by Elisabeth 120. Corbin, Courtine, and Vigarello 2011, p. 222. Rivet, February 15, 1838).
Ravaud in Paris 2004, pp. 108–9. 121. Gautier 1856–57, p. 177. 4. Ibid., vol. 5, p. 180.
85. Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, p. 154 (May 7, 1824); 122. See Metropolitan Museum, 17.50.37. 5. The Journal du commerce of January 11, 1828,
translation adapted from Delacroix 1995a, p. 39. 123. Delacroix 1991, pp. 16–17 (letter to Charles de reported, “for three or four days, the public will be
86. Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, p. 1176 (October 4, 1857): Verninac, August 17, 1830). granted entry to the halls of the Conseil d’Etat: it is a
“For the Aspasie to the waist, lifesize, see a good 124. Corbin, Courtine, and Vigarello 2011, p. 224. favor we must hasten to take advantage of. The doors
sketch in an album of the time.” 125. See Duprat 1997. will probably close on the fifteenth; the Council will
87. Some authors contend that Delacroix was sexually 126. See Paris 1982–83. resume its sessions behind closed doors.” See Johnson
attracted to models of color, basing their arguments on 127. See Allard 2010. 1981–2002, vol. 1, p. 113, n. 1, no. 123.
an entry in his Journal dated May 1824, in which he 128. Delacroix 1935–38, vol. 1, p. 319 (letter to 6. Delacroix 1935–38, vol. 4, pp. 222–23 (letter to
mentions a “chiavatura” with “una nera.” The word Jean-­Baptiste Pierret, February 29, 1832). Achille Fould, 1860).
nera can designate a black woman and also a brunette. 129. Delacroix 2009, vol. 2, p. 1412 (June 22, 1863); 7. Thoré 1837, part 1.
88. See Grigsby 2002. translation adapted from Delacroix 1995a, p. 444. 8. Delacroix 1935–38, vol. 5, pp. 194–95 (letter to
89. Thiers 1824, p. 28. 130. Cantaloube 1864, p. 27. the priest of the church of Saint-­Paul-­Saint-­Louis,
90. Jal 1824, p. 13. 131. Delacroix 1935–38, vol. 1, pp. 318–20 (letter to April 5, 1855).
91. See Louvre, MR 1803. Generally known as the Pierret, February 29, 1832). 9. Paris (Mémorial) 1963, pp. 184–85, no. 245.
Horses of Marly, two pendant sculptures by Guillaume 132. Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, p. 121 (February 27, 10. Delacroix 1935–38, vol. 2, pp. 95–96 (letter to
Coustou I (1677–1746) are each officially titled Horse 1824); Delacroix 1935–38, vol. 3, pp. 264–66 (letter Edmond Cavé, April 5, 1843 [not 1842]).
Restrained by a Groom. to Mme Cavé, June 8, 1855). 11. Ibid., vol. 2, p. 219 (letter to Cavé, June 30, 1845).
92. Quoted in Johnson 1981–2002, vol. 1, p. 103. 133. See Allard in Paris 2004, pp. 90–91. 12. Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, pp. 457–58 (Ecoublay,
93. François Joseph Navez, in Charleroi–La Chaux-­ 134. Blanc 1870, p. 564. September 1, 1849).
de-­Fonds–Coutances 1999–2000, p. 80 (letter to 135. See Hannoosh in Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, p. 319 13. Ibid., vol. 1, pp. 685–86 (Champrosay, October 12,
Louis Léopold Robert, December 11, 1824). (“Notes et brouillons des Souvenirs”). 1853).
94. Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, p. 157 (May 9, 1824); 136. Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, p. 399 (October 8, 1847). 14. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 786 (Paris, June 27, 1854).
translation adapted from Delacroix 1995a, pp. 38–39. 137. Cantaloube 1864, p. 28. 15. Paris 2004, p. 23.
95. National Gallery, London, NG 1207. 138. Ibid., p. 27. 16. Baudelaire 1863 (1976 ed.), vol. 2, p. 769.
96. Silvestre 1859, p. 60; see also Michèle Hannoosh 139. Ibid. 17. Delacroix 1846, p. 440.
in Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, pp. 170–71, n. 334. 140. Delacroix was invited to the wedding by his 18. Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, p. 397 (Paris, October 5,
97. Quoted in Johnson 1981–2002, vol. 1, pp. 104–5. interpreter, Abraham Ben-Chimol, who worked for 1847).
98. Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, pp. 173–74 (July 20, 1824). the French consulate in Tangier. 19. Delacroix 1935–38, vol. 2, p. 4 (letter to Rivet,
99. Landon 1827, p. 70. 141. Fernand Khnopff, in Houyoux and Sulzberger February 23, 1838).
100. Location unknown (J 88). 1964, pp. 183–84 (letter to Léon Houyoux, 1877). 20. Tardieu 1837.
101. Villa Vauban, Musée d’Art de la Ville de 142. Blanc 1870, p. 573. 21. In an article devoted to the painter Prud’hon,
Luxembourg (J 38). 143. Planche 1834, pp. 58, 59, quoted in Paris whose “true genius, domain, and empire is allegory,”
102. Neue Pinakothek, Munich (J 53). (Mémorial) 1963, p. 149, no. 201. Delacroix (1846, p. 445) noted, “allegory is tedious
103. Delacroix 1935–38, vol. 1, p. 196 (letter to 144. Quoted in Bruyas 1876, p. 333. when the painter, who ought to have wings to carry
Soulier, September 28, 1827). 145. Baudelaire 1846 (1976 ed.), vol. 2, p. 440. us to loftier regions, timidly clings to the details of
104. The biographical argument serves to refute the 146. Vauday 2006. imitation and dares not leave the down-­to-­earth
hypothesis that the painting represents Hamlet. 147. Signac 1911, pp. 41–42. aspect of his subject.”
105. Quoted in Johnson 1981–2002, vol. 1, p. 36, 148. Decamps 1834, p. 60. 22. Delacroix 1935–38, vol. 1, pp. 303–4 (letter to
no. 59. 149. Planche 1834, p. 59. Jean-­Baptiste Pierret, January 8, 1832).
106. Taine 1905, p. 360. 150. Du Camp 1882, p. 253. 23. The drawing is in the library of the Assemblé
107. Louvre, RF 6860 recto. 151. Frédéric Villot, preface, in Delacroix sale Nationale. See Paris 1995, p. 117, no. 28.
108. Landon 1827, p. 74. 1865, p. vi. 24. Gautier 1836, p. 2.
109. Thénot 1839, p. 18, quoted in Alliez 2007, p. 93. 152. Cézanne in Gasquet 1921, p. 108. 25. Alexandre-Gabriel Decamps in Le national,
110. Vitet 1828, p. 253. 153. Blanc 1876, p. 49. November 15, 1838.
111. Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, p. 121 (February 27, 1824). 154. Ibid., p. 74. 26. Planche 1846, p. 154.
112. Ibid., vol. 1, pp. 415–16, n. 31. 155. See Alliez 2007, pp. 102–7. 27. Gautier 1847a, p. 1.
113. Delécluze 1828a, p. 1. 156. Eugène Delacroix, “Album de voyage en 28. Planche 1836 (1855 ed.), vol. 2, pp. 21–22.
114. See Musée des Beaux-­Arts, Bordeaux, Bx E 61. Espagne, au Maroc et en Algérie,” Musée Condé, 29. Anon. 1836, pp. 77–78.
115. See Louvre, 3690. Chantilly. See Roque 1997, pp. 201–2. 30. Planche 1838 (1855 ed.), vol. 2, pp. 107–8.
116. See Louvre, 3691. 157. Gautier 1841, p. 160. 31. Gautier 1838, p. 3.
117. See the reports made to the Société Royale des 158. Gautier 1838, p. 3. 32. “Medea killing her two children,” inscribed

268 DELACROIX
ca. 1820, Delacroix album no. 17, folio 8, Musée du 56. Johnson 1995, pp. 130–33, nos. 35 and 36. 83. Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, p. 546 (Paris, August 18,
Louvre (RF 9153). The comment is from Delacroix 57. Clark 1982, pp. 126–41. 1850).
2009, vol. 1, p. 124 (March 4, 1824). 58. Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, p. 411 (January 14, 1849): 84. Compare, for example, his negative impressions
33. Victoria & Albert Museum, London, “At midday, appointment with the Commission at the after the concerts of April 7, 1849, and February 7,
inv. S.2026-­2009. Palais Royal. . . . Appalling devastation; galleries 1850 (ibid., vol. 1, pp. 439 and 485), with the note
34. Virginie Bernast in Paris 2001, pp. 38–39. transformed into warehouses, financial traders’ offices of June 29, 1854 (ibid., vol. 1, p. 788), and the article
35. Liberty Leading the People was on Delacroix’s mind set up, and so on. . . . Then to the Tuileries . . . signs “Questions sur le beau” (Delacroix 1854, p. 310):
at the time. Having become an embarrassment to the of dilapidation, and revolting smells everywhere.” “I will side with him [Beethoven] against even my
regime of Louis-Philippe, the painting had been Translation adapted from Delacroix 1995a, pp. 89, 90. own feelings, believing this time, as on many other
returned to the artist by the Musée du Luxembourg. 59. Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, p. 441 (April 13, 1849). occasions, that one must always bet on genius.”
36. Delacroix may have been replying to the some- 60. Johnson 1981–2002, vol. 3, pp. 261–64, nos. 501–3. 85. Dictionnaire des beaux-­arts, s.v. “Originalité”; see
what pretentious sublime of Paul Delaroche’s Children 61. Haussard 1849. The authors thank Aude Gobet Delacroix 2009, vol. 2, p. 1104.
of Edward, shown at the Salon of 1831, another scene for her research on flower painting in France in the 86. Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, p. 911 (Champrosay,
of children anticipating their own murder, but one mid-­nineteenth century and have based the following June 17, 1855).
evoked much more elliptically. See Louvre, 3834. lines on her scholarship. 87. Ibid., vol. 2, p. 1243 (May 26, 1858); translation
37. Michelangelo and His Genius was not executed but 62. The first quoted phrase is from Gautier 1849; the adapted from Delacroix 1995a, p. 408.
exists as a pastel sketch. See Musée Fabre, second is from Baudelaire 1845 (1976 ed.), vol. 2, 88. Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, p. 1060 (1857 [under the
Montpellier; see also Johnson 1995, p. 54, no. 8. p. 395. date of January 5]).
38. Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, p. 881 (January 30, 1855); 63. Gautier 1849, p. [2]. 89. Delacroix 1857, p. 919. Jean de La Fontaine
translation adapted from Delacroix 1995a, pp. 287–88. 64. Delacroix’s painting bears comparison with (1621–1695) was the author of Fables (1668–1694).
39. See Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, pp. 330–31 (January 22 Monnoyer’s Still Life with Basket of Flowers, Art 90. Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, p. 729 (December 24,
and 23, 1847). The Saint-­Sulpice commission, Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 855P13. 1853); translation adapted from Delacroix 1995a, p. 231.
confirmed two years later by the republican regime, 65. Delacroix 1935–38, vol. 2, pp. 372–73 (letter to 91. Delacroix 1935–38, vol. 4, pp. 90–91 (letter to
was for a chapel at the church entrance and not for Constant Dutilleux, February 6, 1849). Dutilleux, April 2, 1859).
the transepts. 66. The mostly highly elaborated drawing related to 92. The second copy of Medea About to Kill Her
40. Théophile Gautier (1847b) was the first to the ceiling composition is Louvre, RF 1927 recto. Children is in the Louvre (RF 1402); the third, also
remark on this connection. 67. See Louvre, RF 1927 recto. from 1862, is in a private collection. An impression of
41. Delacroix 1846. He makes only passing mention 68. Sérullaz 1963, p. 118. the lithograph by Emile Lassalle is in the Musée
(p. 449) of Christ on the Cross in his homage to the 69. Delacroix had sketched the motif of the celestial National Eugène-Delacroix (inv. S.E.D. 1950-1); see
elder artist, which begins with a critique (p. 432) chariot drawn by whinnying horses in a drawing for Paris 2001, no. 54.
directed more at Ingres than at David: “The pedantry the allegory of War for the Salon du Roi at the Palais 93. See the 1858 version at the Museum of Fine Arts,
of the contour, the taste for archaism in place of the Bourbon (Louvre, RF 29664). See Sérullaz et al. Boston (95.179), and the 1860–61 version at the Art
antique, a bizarre hatred of the picturesque: such 1984, vol. 1, p. 123, no. 180. Institute of Chicago (1922.404).
were the shackles against which Prudhon waged his 70. For a comprehensive monograph on the Gallery 94. Lion Devouring a Rabbit, Louvre, RF 1394; Lion
victorious struggle.” of Apollo, see Bresc-Bautier 2004. Devouring an Arab, Nasjonalgalleriet, Oslo,
42. Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, p. 329 (January 21, 1847). 71. See also Musée d’Orsay, Paris, RF 1814 (J 194). inv. NG.M.01178.
43. See Johnson 1981–2002, vol. 1, pp. 218–19, no. D4. 72. Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, pp. 333–34 (January 25, 95. See Louvre RF 10022.
44. Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, p. 356 (March 2, 1847). 1847); translation adapted from Delacroix 1995a, p. 60. 96. The earlier of the two circa 1849 versions is in
45. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 356 (March 1, 1847). 73. The first quotation in this paragraph is from the Musée des Beaux-­Arts, Lyon; the second, owned
46. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 358 (March 2, 1847); translation Gautier 1855b; the second is from Mantz 1855, p. 172. by the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, is on loan to
adapted from Delacroix 1995a, p. 71. 74. Du Camp 1855, pp. 115–16. King’s College.
47. Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, p. 358 (March 2, 1847); 75. Petroz 1855, p. [2]. 97. Delacroix had seen Rossini’s Othello again at the
translation adapted from Delacroix 1995a, p. 71. 76. Petroz was born in 1819, Mantz in 1821, and Théâtre-­Italien in spring 1847. See Delacroix 2009,
48. Delacroix 2009, vol. 2, p. 1332 (March 8, 1860). Du Camp in 1822. vol. 1, p. 369 (March 30, 1847).
49. Ibid., vol. 1 (February 16, 1850). 77. Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, p. 514 (June 8, 1850); 98. Ducis refashioned the play in 1769 from a
50. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 732 (December 11, 1855 [under the translation adapted from Delacroix 1995a, p. 127. French translation.
date December 30, 1853]). Delacroix wrote the entry 78. Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, p. 516 (June 14, 1850); 99. Penley used David Garrick’s adaptation of Hamlet
while studying a lithograph by Jules Laurens after a translation adapted from Delacroix 1995a, p. 128. for this production, which was staged in a small
second version of the painting. 79. Medwin 1824, pp. 168–71, 244, 246. For the theater on the rue Chantereine.
51. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 401 (December 14, 1847). excerpt copied by Delacroix into his Journal; see 100. He did see Kean play Richard III and Othello,
52. Domenico Ferri (1795–1878) was appointed the Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, pp. 525–26. however. See Delacroix 1935–38, vol. 1, pp. 161–63
principal set designer of the Théâtre-­Italien in 1829. 80. See Delacroix 1935–38, vol. 3, pp. 113–14 (letter (letter to Pierret, London, June 27, 1825).
53. Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, pp. 358–59 (March 3, to Soulier, August 3, 1850). 101. See Phelps Bailey 1964, pp. 53–63.
1847); translation adapted from Delacroix 1995a, p. 72. 81. Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, pp. 542–43 (Antwerp, 102. However, after the first few performances of the
54. Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, p. 519 (July 8, 1850); August 10, 1850); translation adapted from Delacroix Kemble production, French police put a stop to the
translation adapted from Delacroix 1995a, p. 130. 1995a, p. 142. churchyard scene.
55. See Johnson 1981–2002, vol. 3, p. 240, no. 460; 82. Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, p. 542 (Antwerp, August 10, 103. Delacroix 1935–38, vol. 1, p. 197 (letter to
Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, p. 674 (June 28, 1853). 1850); translation adapted from Delacroix 1995a, p. 142. Soulier, September 25, 1827).

Notes 269
104. Souvenirs du théâtre anglais à Paris 1827. 9. Perrier 1855. 45. After a furtive meeting in 1846, Fromentin and
105. See Montier 2017. 10. Baudelaire 1855 (1976 ed.), pp. 591–92. Delacroix truly established contact in 1859. See ibid.,
106. Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, p. 163 (May 15, 1824). 11. Gautier 1856–57, pp. 167–68. vol. 1, p. 1148, and vol. 2, p. 2201.
107. The German artist Friedrich Moritz Auguste 12. The first-­to fourth-­place winners were Horace 46. On that occasion, Fromentin received a first-­
Retzsch was born in Dresden in 1799 and died at Vernet, Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, Alexandre- place medal and was awarded the Legion of Honor.
Hoflossnitz in 1857. Gabriel Decamps, and François Joseph Heim. See Paris–New York 1994–95, p. 386.
108. BnF, Dc 183n. Rés. 13. Clément de Ris 1857, p. 414. 47. Baudelaire 1976, p. 296. Fromentin does not
109. Le Tourneur 1835, vol. 2. 14. Mantz 1859, pp. 136–39. seem to have harbored unconditional admiration for
110. Delacroix 1935–38, vol. 1, p. 333 (letter to Pierret, 15. Saint-­Victor 1859, pp. 1–2. Delacroix, as attested in Notes sur le genre dans la
July 5, 1832). 16. Rousseau 1859, p. 4. peinture: “It is not difficult to prove that even in his
111. The preliminary drawing is in a private collection. 17. Du Camp 1859, pp. 12–13. large so-­called history paintings, Delacroix is only a
112. The lithograph, by Bernard de Frey, appeared in 18. Saint-­Victor 1859, p. 2. genre painter” (Fromentin 1984, p. 921).
L’artiste 11, no. 6; the poem, “À M. Eugène Delacroix 19. Perrier 1859, p. 293. 48. Astruc 1859, p. 296.
sur son tableau de Hamlet,” dated August 1836, was 20. Mantz 1859, p. 136. 49. Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, p. 741 (March 22, 1854).
published in L’artiste 12, no. 8, pp. 91–92. 21. Saint-­Victor 1859, p. 2. 50. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 797 (July 29, 1845).
113. “Hamlet,” Le magasin pittoresque, ann. 5 22. Ibid. 51. Vincent Pomarède, in Madrid–Barcelona 2011–12,
(December 1837): 385–86; there is an impression in 23. Du Pays 1859. p. 308.
the Metropolitan Museum: 34.36.552. In 1845 the 24. Saint-­Victor 1859, p. 2. 52. Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, p. 551 (Champrosay,
dealer Paul Durand-­Ruel commissioned Delacroix to 25. Rousseau 1859, p. 4. November 3 and 4, 1850); translation adapted from
make a new lithograph (Durand-­Ruel 1845, pl. 6). 26. Saint-­Victor 1859, p. 2. Delacroix 1995a, pp. 145–46.
114. Neue Pinakothek, Munich, inv. 12764 (J 264). 27. Castagnary 1892, vol. 1, p. 69. 53. Louvre, RF 9770.
115. See Johnson 1981–2002, vol. 3, p. 87, no. 267. 28. See the overview of the Salon of 1859 by Henri 54. Louvre, RF 23315.
116. See BnF, Dc 183n. Rés. Loyrette in Paris–New York 1994–95, pp. 3–27. 55. Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, p. 508 (Champrosay,
117. Baudelaire 1859a (1976 ed.). For the portrait by 29. Claude Monet, in ibid., p. 23 (letter to May 8, 1850); translation adapted from Delacroix
Manet, see The Tragic Actor (Rouvière as Hamlet), Eugène Boudin). 1995a, pp. 124–25.
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1959.3.1. 30. Chesneau 1859, quoted by Arlette Sérullaz in 56. Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, p. 514 (Champrosay,
118. It should be noted that Delacroix may have Paris–Philadelphia 1998–99, p. 42. June 8, 1850); translation adapted from Delacroix
executed a painted version of Hamlet and Horatio in 31. See Delacroix 2009, vol. 2, p. 1333. See also 1995a, p. 127.
the Graveyard in the 1830s. A horizontal painting of Paris 1860. 57. Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, p. 815 (Dieppe, August 25,
the subject, attributed to him, appeared at a sale in 32. Ibid., vol. 2, 1270 (March 1, 1859). 1854); translation adapted from Delacroix 1995a, p. 262.
1840. The work not been published since that time. 33. Delacroix 1935–38, vol. 4, pp. 90–91 (letter to 58. Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, p. 603 (September 14,
See Johnson 1981–2002, vol. 3, no. L140. Dutilleux, April 2, 1859). 1852); translation adapted from Delacroix 1995a, p. 169.
119. Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, p. 717 (November 28, 34. Ibid., vol. 4, pp. 98–99 (letter to Dutilleux, 59. Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, pp. 1078–79 (1857).
1853); translation adapted from Delacroix 1995a, p. 226. May 12, 1859). 60. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 124 (March 3, 1824). See also the
120. Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, pp. 802–3 (August 5, 35. Ibid., vol. 4, pp. 106–7 (letter to Auguste Lamey, sheet dated 1824–25 (INHA cartoon 120, autog.
1854); translation of first part is adapted from June 11, 1859). 1397/15): “Shipwreck of Don Juan. Scenes on the
Delacroix 1995a, p. 240. 36. His “Salon de 1859” appeared in the issues of vessel.—The shipwrecked look ferociously at one
June 10, June 20, July 1, and July 20 of the Revue another. The licentiate Pedrillo extends his throat
française, which went under after that last issue. and wrist to the surgeon.” See Delacroix 2009,
From the Last of the Romantics to the “Because it was in the Revue française, the Salon de vol. 2, pp. 1451–53 (sheet).
Genius of Color: 1855–63 1859 [by Baudelaire] was hardly read” (Claude Pichois 61. Johnson 1981–2002, vol. 3, p. 102, no. 276.
in Baudelaire 1976, vol. 2, p. 1384). 62. Delacroix 1935–38, vol. 2, pp. 19–20 (letter to
1. Delacroix 2009, vol. 2, p. 1270 (March 1, 1859). 37. Delacroix 1935–38, vol. 4, p. 111 (letter to Charles Pierret, Valmont, September 5, 1838).
2. Allard and Chaudonneret 2006, pp. 40–45. Baudelaire, June 27, 1859). 63. Gautier 1856–57, p. 187.
3. Baudelaire (1976 ed.), vol. 2, p. 419. 38. Saint-­Victor 1859, p. 2. 64. Lee Johnson hypothesizes that the artist was
4. See Signac 1911 and Ratliff 1992. 39. Mantz 1859, p. 137. simultaneously alluding to The Death of Sardanapalus
5. The decoration is composed of a circular ceiling, 40. Saint-­Victor 1859, p. 2. (Johnson 1981–2002, vol. 3, p. 233).
Peace Descends to Earth, eleven tympana depicting the 41. Castagnary 1892, p. 72. 65. Fondation Emil G. Bührle Collection, Zürich,
labors of Hercules, and eight caissons showing the 42. For example, Delacroix encouraged the inv. 125.
gods of Olympus. It was unveiled for a ball on February Ministère de l’Intérieur to acquire The Avenue of 66. Paris–Philadelphia 1998–99, p. 279.
21, 1854. That decoration vanished sixteen years later Chestnut Trees (Delacroix 1991, pp. 100–101 [letter to 67. Louvre, RF 9466. See Sérullaz et al. 1984, vol. 1,
in the fire at the Hôtel de Ville caused by the Edmond Cavé, July 26, 1840]), but in vain. Seven p. 430, no. 1177, ill. p. 429.
Communards on the night of May 24, 1871. years later, visiting the framer and gilder Souty, he 68. Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, p. 821 (Dieppe,
6. Planche in Revue des deux mondes, April 15, 1854, was happy to see the painting again (Delacroix 2009, September 4, 1854).
quoted by Sérullaz 1989, p. 326. vol. 1, p. 376 [April 30, 1847]). 69. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 963 (Dieppe, October 10, 1855);
7. Delécluze in Journal des débats, March 17, 1854, 43. Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, pp. 340–41 (February 2, translation adapted from Delacroix 1995a, pp. 324–25.
quoted by Sérullaz 1989, p. 320. 1847). 70. Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, pp. 470–71 (Valmont,
8. Planche in Revue des deux mondes, April 15, 1854, 44. Ibid., vol. 1, pp. 490, 492 (February 25 and October 18, 1849); translation adapted from
quoted by Sérullaz 1989, p. 327. March 1, 1850). Delacroix 1995a, p. 111.

270 DELACROIX
71. See Johnson 1981–2002, vol. 3, p. 129, no. 308. Delacroix painted at the feet of the beauty stripped accounts of all those I loved, awakened fond memo-
72. Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 85.1; Staatsgalerie bare on Marphise’s order: having fallen to the ries of them.” Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, p. 1038 (Ante,
Stuttgart, inv. 2636. ground along with a mule slipper and an unlaced October 8, 1856).
73. Dated by Lee Johnson to approximately 1852, it corset, it also symbolizes the young woman’s 118. Delacroix 1935–38, vol. 2, pp. 21–22 (letter to
may actually have been undertaken much earlier as humiliated pride. George Sand, Valmont, September 5, 1838).
an Ariadne, contemporaneous with the Odalisque 97. Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, p. 563 (May 13, 1851); 119. Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, p. 601 (Dieppe,
(Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge), which is similar translation adapted from Delacroix 1995a, p. 149. September 11, 1852); translation adapted from
to it. It is probable that Delacroix, who kept the work 98. Louvre, RF 9972. Delacroix 1995a, p. 167.
until his death, reprised and completed the work 99. Tasso 1825, vol. 2, p. 139. 120. Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, p. 701 (Champrosay,
subsequently, turning it into Andromeda. 100. Sérullaz et al. 1984, vol. 1, p. 259, no. 549. October 27, 1853); translation adapted from Delacroix
74. Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, inv. 2636. 101. Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, p. 448 (June 2, 1849). 1995a, p. 218.
75. Pomarède in Paris–Philadelphia 1998–99, p. 140, 102. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 787 (June 28, 1854). 121. Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, p. 818 (Dieppe, August 30,
no. 38. 103. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 871 (January 2, 1855). A similar 1854); translation adapted from Delacroix 1995a, p. 265.
76. “This castle, perched on the rock like a pedestal, subject, taken from canto 18 of Jerusalem Delivered, 122. Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, p. 941 (Croze,
is altogether extraordinary” (Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, reappeared among sketches of trees that Delacroix September 13–15, 1855); translation adapted from
p. 942 [September 13–15, 1855]). filled in during his stays at the Château d’Augerville Delacroix 1995a, pp. 314–15.
77. Ibid, vol. 1, p. 830 (September 11, 1854). in October 1854 and 1855. See ibid., vol. 2, p. 1762 123. Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, p. 264 (“Souvenirs d’un
78. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 279 (Souvenirs du Maroc, (January 2, 1855). voyage dans le Maroc”).
1843–44). 104. See the engraving in L’artiste, November 1, 1852; 124. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 266.
79. Delacroix 1991, pp. 87–88 (letter to the duchesse see also Paris–Philadelphia 1998–99, p. 253, no. 102. 125. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 267.
Colonna [Adèle d’Affry], Ante, September 23, 1862). 105. Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, p. 809 (August 12, 1854). 126. Ibid., vol. 2, pp. 1598–99, appendix 27.
80. Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, pp. 633–34 (April 16, 1853); 106. On seeing one of Diaz’s paintings at the Galerie 127. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 691 (Champrosay, October 17,
translation adapted from Delacroix 1995a, pp. 182–83. Durand-­Ruel in 1847, he felt that “everything came 1853); translation adapted from Delacroix 1995a, p. 210.
81. Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, p. 843 (September 26, out of the painter’s imagination, but . . . the memo- 128. Johnson 1981–2002, pp. 215–16, no. 426.
1854); translation adapted from Delacroix 1995a, ries are faithful, [there is] life, grace, abundance” 129. Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, p. 686 (October 12, 1853);
p. 278. (ibid., vol. 1, p. 399 [October 7, 1847]). translation adapted from Delacroix 1995a, p. 207.
82. Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, p. 1173 (September 3, 1857); 107. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 687 (October 12, 1853); transla- 130. Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, p. 688 (October 12, 1853);
translation adapted from Delacroix 1995a, p. 395. tion adapted from Delacroix 1995a, p. 208. translation adapted from Delacroix 1995a, pp. 208–9.
83. Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, p. 916 (June 20, 1855); 108. Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, pp. 632–33 (April 15, 1853); 131. Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, p. 691 (Champrosay,
translation adapted from Delacroix 1995a, p. 305. translation adapted from Delacroix 1995a, pp. 181–82. October 17, 1853); translation adapted from Delacroix
84. Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, p. 1084 (1857 [under the 109. Delacroix 2009, vol. 2, p. 1323 (February 22, 1995a, p. 210.
date of January 23]); translation adapted from 1860); translation adapted from Delacroix 1995a, 132. Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, p. 963 (Dieppe,
Delacroix 1995a, p. 364. p. 424. October 10, 1855); translation adapted from
85. Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, p. 1080 (1857 [under the 110. Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, p. 691 (October 17, 1853). Delacroix 1995a, p. 325.
date of January 20]). 111. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 929 (August 3, 1855). 133. Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, p. 831 (Dieppe,
86. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 668 (May 29, 1853). 112. The term “Assyrian” became a topos in physical September 12, 1854); translation adapted from
87. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 449 (June 2, 1849). descriptions of Courbet, popularized in 1856 by Delacroix 1995a, p. 272.
88. Ibid., vol. 2, pp. 1241–43 (May 23, 1858), 1327–28 Théophile Silvestre. 134. The titles the painter used to designate his
(February 29, 1860). 113. The Death of Sardanapalus and The Painter’s Studio completed work attest to this: Landscape of Tangier
89. With the exception of 1858 and 1860, see ibid., also shared the same fate: major works by their by the Sea or Seaside of Tangier. See Johnson 1981–
vol. 2, pp. 2110–11. respective artists, they were long rejected by muse- 2002, vol. 3, p. 206, no. 408.
90. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 767 (May 20, 1854); translation ums, passing through many hands before entering the 135. Delacroix 2009, vol. 2, p. 1228 (March 10, 1858).
adapted from Delacroix 1995a, p. 245. Louvre at about the same time (in 1921 and 1920, 136. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 839 (Dieppe, September 20,
91. Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, p. 859 (October 30, 1854). respectively), where they coexisted for more than 1854).
92. Delacroix often mentioned Watteau’s paintings, fifty years. 137. “Saw I Puritani [by Bellini]. . . . The moonlight
from the time he first saw one (no doubt Rendez-­vous 114. Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, pp. 528–29 (July 21, 1850). scene at the end is superb, like everything the
de chasse, currently in London, Wallace Collection) at 115. “For Watteau, trees are painted according to a designer in this theater [the Théâtre-­Italien] does.
the home of the duc de Morny: “He has a magnifi- formula: they are always alike and remind one more I think he obtains his effects with very simple colors,
cent Watteau. I was struck by the wonderful skill it of theater sets than of trees in the forests” (ibid., using black and blue and perhaps umber, but they
displayed. Flanders and Venice are united in this vol. 1, p. 797 [July 29, 1854]; translation adapted are well understood with regard to the planes and
painting.” (Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, p. 371 [April 3, from Delacroix 1995a, p. 253). “Everything after the way in which one tint is placed above another.”
1847]); translation adapted from Delacroix 1995a, p. 77. Lebrun, and especially the eighteenth century as a Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, p. 359 (March 3, 1847);
93. An oil on canvas on this subject came up for sale whole, is commonplace and formulaic.” (Delacroix translation adapted from Delacroix 1995a, p. 72.
at the gallery of Sayn-­Wittgenstein Fine Art, Inc., 2009, vol. 1, p. 1175 [September 13, 1857]). 138. Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, p. 759 (Champrosay,
New York, in 1992. 116. Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, p. 695 (Champrosay, April 28, 1854); translation adapted from Delacroix
94. Lichtenstein 1979, p. 131. October 20, 1853); translation adapted from 1995a, p. 242.
95. National Gallery, London, NG194. Delacroix 1995a, p. 213. 139. Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, p. 851 (Champrosay,
96. A possible memory or quotation of Rubens’s 117. “Went to see Givry (I was about to say ‘see October 12, 1854); translation adapted from
Juno may be found in the peacock feather fan that again’). That place, which I knew only through the Delacroix 1995a, pp. 282–83.

Notes 271
140. Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, p. 1098 (1857 [under Asher Miller 22. See Johnson 1981–2002, vol. 1, pp. 8–9, no. 8.
the date of February 1]). The Act of Looking in Delacroix’s 23. Kunsthaus Zürich, 1988/28 (J 128]).
141. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 1102 (1857 [under the date of Early Narrative Paintings 24. See Johnson 1981–2002, vol. 1, pp. 123–26,
February 6–7]). no. 128.
142. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 1188 (October 29, 1857). 1. New York 1991, pp. 118–19, no. 51 (as private 25. See ibid., vol. 1, pp. 126–27, no. 129. Woodstock
143. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 1093 (1857 [under the date of collection). was first translated into French in 1826.
January 29]). 2. Delacroix 1935–38, vol. 5, pp. 48–49 (letter to his 26. Marino Faliero was previously shown at the
144. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 365 (March 14, 1847); translation sister, Henriette, May 1, 1820). Three nights a week, Exposition au profit des Grecs, held at Galerie Lebrun
adapted from Delacroix 1995a, p. 75. Delacroix would attend life classes or study plaster in the summer of 1826.
145. Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, p. 852 (sheet inserted casts of ancient sculptures at the Ecole des Beaux-­ 27. It was first translated into French in 1821.
under the date of October 15, 1854). Arts; see Johnson 1981–2002, vol. 1, p. xvi. 28. See Johnson 1981–2002, vol. 1, pp. 98–102,
146. At the Louvre, Delacroix could see a Holy Family 3. Delacroix 1935–38, vol. 5, p. 51. no. 112; vol. 2, pl. 98.
Fleeing Egypt (1765) by an anonymous pasticher, who 4. See Johnson 1981–2002, vol. 1, pp. 12–13, no. 14; 29. See note 9 above.
combined Elsheimer’s composition with the group vol. 2, pl. 11. 30. Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, p. 528 (July 18, 1850).
conceived by Rubens for the Flight into Egypt. 5. See Bazin 1987–97, vol. 2, pp. 430–31, no. 312. Cf. Allard 2011, p. 53.
147. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 847 (October 4, 1854); translation 6. On the sheet of Notes and Figure Studies cited in 31. Most immediately, he was prompted by a reading
adapted from Delacroix 1995a, pp. 279–80. note 1 above (New York 1991, p. 118), Delacroix of Le dessin sans maître, the manual written by his
148. Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, p. 1057 (1857 [under the wrote, “Make drawings after Rubens’s heads / . . . or friend Marie-­Elisabeth Cavé, which was first pub-
date of January 1]); translation adapted from those of Veronese . . . / with strong features / in the lished in 1850; see Cavé 1850; Hannoosh in
Delacroix 1995a, pp. 347–48. vein of the jester [dwarf ] in the marriage at / Cana.” Delacroix 2009, vol. 2, pp. 2132–33.
149. Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, pp. 1059–60 (1857 7. See Johnson 1981–2002, vol. 1, p. 13 (under 32. Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, p. 110 (December 30, 1823).
[under the date of January 5]); translation adapted no. 14); vol. 1, p. 218, no. D2; vol. 2, pl. 163. The 33. Four drawings are listed in the catalogue of the
from Delacroix 1995a, p. 349. copy showing the bride and groom is known to the artist’s 1864 estate sale (under no. 354), probably
150. Delacroix 1935–38, vol. 4, p. 94 (letter to author in reproduction only. Louvre, RF 3704, RF 3705, RF 9530, and Palais des
Pérignon, April 18, 1859). 8. Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, p. 637 (April 20, 1853); Beaux-­Arts, Lille, inv. Pluchart 1261.
151. Sale, Christie’s, New York, October 25, 2006, translation by Lucy Norton in Delacroix 1995a, p. 183. 34. Delacroix made a sketch after the Rubens work
no. 159.25 9. Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, p. 90 (October 8, 1822). about 1837 (see Johnson 1981–2002, vol. 3, p. 267,
152. On March 12, 1832, then again on April 6–7, According to Hannoosh, this is the first trace of this no. L117, vol. 7, p. 16 and pl. 16); the first to draw a
Delacroix had traveled alongside and across the idea in Delacroix’s writings; see Hannoosh in connection between these enlèvements was Thomas
Sebou River. Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, pp. 231–32 Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, p. 528 n. 263; translation Lederballe: see Lederballe 2000.
(Meknes notebook). adapted from Norton’s version in Delacroix 1995a,
153. Mantz 1859, p. 137. pp. 6–7.
154. Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, p. 797 (July 29, 1854); 10. As noted in Johnson 1981–2002, vol. 1, p. 203, L94. Michèle Hannoosh
translation adapted from Delacroix 1995a, pp. 252–53. 11. Although in his Self-­Portrait of about 1819 Delacroix “Painting His Thoughts on Paper”:
155. Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, p. 791 (July 5, 1854); assumes the guise of Ravenswood (cat. 4), the Delacroix and His Journal
translation adapted from Delacroix 1995a, pp. 249–50. painting is not based on a specific narrative incident
156. Frédéric Villot, quoted in Jobert 1997, pp. 205–6 in Scott’s The Bride of Lammermoor, first published in 1. Baudelaire 1863 (1976 ed.), vol. 2, p. 754.
(letter to Alfred Sensier). 1819 and translated into French the same year. 2. See Louvre, RF 39050-­22 and 39050-­23; RF 1712bis.
157. Mantz 1847, p. 219. 12. Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, p. 110 (December 30, 1823). 3. Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, p. 77. All translations of
158. Théophile Thoré in Le constitutionnel, January 10, 13. Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, p. 88 (October 5, 1822). Delacroix’s writings in this essay are by Michèle
1847. 14. Chateaubriand subsequently included Atala Hannoosh.
159. Loyrette 1995. in Le génie du Christianisme in (1802) and The 4. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 80 (September 5, 1822). Victoire
160. Delacroix 2009, vol. 2, p. 1552. Natchez (1826). Delacroix, née Oeben, died on September 3, 1814.
161. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 440 (April 10, 1849). 15. Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, p. 109 (December 22 or 5. Louvre, RF 3820.
162. Delacroix 1857, p. 911. 23, 1823). 6. Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, p. 116 (January 25, 1824).
163. J 157a. Sale, Fraysse & associés, Paris, June 4, 16. Delacroix 2009, p. 102 (May 24 or 31, 1823). 7. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 135 (April 7, 1824).
2008, no. 17. 17. Another sheet, with a study for The Natchez 8. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 106 (November 10, 1823).
164. “Poor brother!—You don’t admit to yourself (Louvre, RF 9219) on the recto that includes most of 9. Louvre, RF 9140, fol. 31.
your sad position, and your friends cannot offer a the key features of the definitive composition, has on 10. Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, pp. 111 (January 4, 1824);
remedy.” Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, pp. 84–86 its verso a graphite study for Chios, in which the 98 (April 15, 1823); 98 and 99 (May 16, 1823); 108
(September 19, 1822). group on the right still includes the mother with the (December 22, 1823).
165. Johnson 1981–2002, vol. 3, p. 139. dead infant, further evidence that work on The 11. Ibid., vol. 1, pp. 147 (April 25, 1824); 154 (May 4,
166. Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, p. 878 (January 9, 1855). Natchez began before Chios was well advanced. 1824); 100 (May 16, 1823).
167. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 1048 (December 7, 1856). 18. Voutier 1823, p. 251 n. 1. 12. Ibid., vol. 1, pp. 90 (October 8, 1822); 121
168. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 1334 (March 15, 1860). 19. Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, pp. 112–13 (January 12, 1824). (February 27, 1824); 156 (May 7, 1824).
169. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 1098 (1857 [under the date of 20. The painting by Poussin was then, as now, in 13. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 156 (May 7, 1824).
February 1]). the Louvre (7276). The author thanks Andrea Bayer 14. INHA, Ms 253-­1.
170. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 851 (Champrosay, April 28, 1854). for sharing her thoughts about these sources. 15. Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, pp. 326–27 (January 19,
171. Gautier 1874, pp. 214 –15. 21. Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, p. 124 (March 4, 1824). 1847).

272 DELACROIX
16. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 327 (January 19, 1847). 7. “[I am writing you] from M. Guérin’s studio. You 25. Véron 1853–55, vol. 1, p. 234.
17. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 1056, n. 35 (January 1, 1857). can guess the reason: so as not to have to light the 26. Victor Bodinier, in Angers 2011, p. 264 (letter to
18. Ibid., vol. 2, p. 1605 (1844). fire at my own place.” Delacroix 1935–38, vol. 5, p. 20 his brother Guillaume, November 22, 1822). Before
19. Ibid., vol. 2, p. 1226 (February 23, 1858; in fact (letter to his sister, Henriette, January 5, 1820). departing for Rome, Guérin entrusted his students
February 28, 1860); vol. 1, p. 841 (September 23, 1854). 8. David was expelled from the Académie des and studio to François-­Edouard Picot. According to a
20. Motherwell 2007, p. 286. Beaux-­Arts in March 1816 for his role in the Reign of note written by Guérin’s servant in November of that
21. Delacroix 2009, vol. 2, p. 1412 (June 22, 1863). Terror. The Académie des Beaux-Arts is one of five year, “there remained twenty-­one students, five of
22. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 696 (October 20, 1853). academies administered by the Institut de France, the whom were new. Happily, the most disruptive
23. Ibid., vol. 2, p. 1579 (December 16, 1843). preeminent organization of French scholars and had gone.”
24. Ibid., vol. 2, p. 1649. artists. The main function of the Académie des 27. The critic Etienne Jean Delécluze linked the
25. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 694 (October 20, 1853). Beaux-Arts is the teaching of art by its members, at Romantic painters to the Primitives when he com-
26. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 717 (November 30, 1853). the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. pared the former to “a sect of spiritualist artists.”
27. Ibid., vol. 2, p. 1380 (January 1, 1861). 9. Korchane 2005a, pp. 90–92; Korchane 2005b; Delécluze 1828b, p. 250.
28. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 766 (May 10, 1854). Korchane 2018, chap. 21. 28. Quoted in Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, p. 82. Upon
29. See also Basket of Flowers (cat. 109); and Bouquet 10. Pierre Narcisse Guérin and Antoine Jean Gros, being named director of the Académie de France
of Flowers (1848–49) in the Louvre (RF 31719 recto). report on the submissions from Rome in 1816, read in Rome on April 13, 1822, Guérin devoted himself
30. Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, p. 472 (October 20, 1849). aloud at the Institut de France during the sessions of full-­time to preparing for that assignment. He left
31. Ibid., vol. 1, pp. 544–45 (August 13, 1850). September 28 and October 12, 1816, Institut de Paris on October 15, 1822, and assumed his duties in
32. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 816 (August 26 and 27, 1854). France, Paris, A.B.A. 5E 8, fol. 3; see Korchane 2018. Rome on January 1, 1823. See Le Normand-­Romain,
33. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 1153 (May 12, 1857). 11. See Lapauze 1924, vol. 2, pp. 122–23. Fossier, and Korchane 2005.
34. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 1019 (May 30, 1856). 12. For Delacroix’s use of photographs and their effect 29. Delacroix 1848.
35. Baudelaire 1856 (1976 ed.), vol. 2, pp. 317–18. on his art, see Damisch 2001 and Paris 2008–9. 30. David, in Wildenstein and Wildenstein 1973,
36. Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, p. 815 (August 25, 1854). 13. See Delacroix 1995b. p. 219 (letter to Gros, June 22, 1820). For Gros’s
37. Ibid., vol. 2, p. 1726 (May 9, 1853). 14. These three manuscripts are being prepared for conversion to Davidian painting, see Allard and
38. Ibid., vol. 1, pp. 1189, 1191–92. publication by Dominique de Font-­Réaulx; see Chaudonneret 2010, pp. 67–71.
39. Ibid., vol. 2, p. 1339 (April 3, 1860). Font-­Réaulx 2017. 31. Allard and Chaudonneret 2010, p. 70; Bordes
40. Ibid., vol. 2, p. 1634. 15. Delacroix specialists are divided on the identity 2012, p. 39. The painting resurfaced at the Pierre
41. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 1627 (1844). of the model for this portrait, which resurfaced in Bergé and Yves Saint-­Laurent sale, Christie’s,
42. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 807 (August 11, 1854). 2015. I share the opinion of Bruno Chenique and February 24, 2009, lot 88.
43. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 684 (October 9, 1853). Philippe Grunchec, who corroborate its identification 32. Quoted in Delacroix 2009, vol. 2, p. 1738.
44. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 524 (July 14, 1850). as Delacroix. Chenique 2015, pp. 24–26; Baroni 33. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 87 (October 5, 1822).
45. Ibid., vol. 2, p. 1257 (August 19, 1858). 2016, pp. 52–57. 34. The hostile comments of Victor Bodinier,
16. Delacroix 1995b, p. 46 (letter to Félix Guillaume’s brother and a student of Ingres, should
Guillemardet, September 1818). A course of study in be added to the list: “M. Delacroix is making his own
Mehdi Korchane Rome was considered an essential part of a successful revolution. People are talking about nothing but his
Eugène and His Masters: artist’s training. new painting, Scene of the Massacres at Chios: Greek
Becoming Delacroix 17. Guillaume Bodinier, in Angers 2011, p. 258 (letter Families Awaiting Death or Slavery. I find some energy
to his father, November 27, 1816). in it. But it disgusts me. Here are men, women, and
1. Baudelaire 1863 (1976 ed.), p. 746. 18. See Chenique 2015, esp. pp. 30–37. children who look as if they are dying of starvation,
2. The aesthetic break between Baudelaire and 19. A pencil study by Gericault for the painting was plague, gangrene, every malady that can turn the
Champfleury crystallized in Baudelaire’s critique discovered by Louis-­Antoine Prat in 1981. See body livid (and which, if I were an artist, I would
of the realistic imitation of nature, a practice he Metropolitan Museum, 2002.481; see also Bazin always consider myself unfortunate to represent): it’s
identified as “positivism.” Baudelaire developed this 1987–97, vol. 7, p. 285, no. 2776, ill. a horror! I confess that I do not like the painting,
argument in his review of the Salon of 1859. 20. Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, p. 109 (December 30, which frightens and disgusts me.” Victor Bodinier, in
3. “I admit not only that I am a Romantic, but also 1823). See Louvre, 5180. Angers 2011, pp. 273–­74 (letter to his brother
that I have been one since I was fifteen; I already 21. Guillaume Bodinier, in Angers 2011, p. 259 (letter Guillaume, Paris, September 13, 1824).
preferred Prud’hon and Gros to Guérin and Girodet” to his father, November 27, 1816). 35. Korchane 2003, pp. 107–15.
(Silvestre 1856, p. 61). 22. See Debord 1997. 36. See the essay by Sébastien Allard and Côme
4. Du Camp 2002, p. 230. 23. See Sérullaz et al. 1984, vol. 1, pp. 352–58, Fabre in the present volume.
5. Véron 1853–55, vol. 1, p. 234. nos. 938–66. 37. Korchane 2005b; Korchane 2018, chaps. 23–24;
6. Delacroix 1878, p. 8 (letter to Jules Allard, 24. Responding to the painting when it was exhibited Allard and Chaudonneret 2010, pp. 121–27; Angers
August 25, 1813, erroneously dated 1815 by Philippe that year, a journalist identified as L’amateur sans 2012, pp. 112–16.
Burty on p. 7): “I went to M. Guérin’s studio this prétention (The Unpretentious Art Lover) wrote: “I 38. Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, p. 174 (August 19, 1824);
morning to bid him farewell. There I admired the arrive eagerly; what a surprise! I feel repelled not by vol. 2, pp. 1741, 1742, 1744–46 (autobiographical
beautiful paintings he will exhibit at the next Salon. I the horrors of the subject matter but by the hideous notebook).
regret not being able to study with him this year, but, aspect of the painting. . . . Cadavers already marked 39. Horses Frightened by the Surf and Sea Study
when I’m no longer at this lycée, I want to spend with the stamp of destruction and the livid color that remained in the possession of Gérard’s family until
some time there [in Guérin’s studio] to have at least signals the second, disfiguring, phase of death; living the Pescheteau-­Badin sale, Paris, December 12, 2013,
a little talent as an amateur.” bodies that resemble them” (Anon. 1824, p. 199). lots 23 and 24.

Notes 273
40. Lethière’s name appears on the list of visitors to granted to the fine arts was limited, and the works were 26. “Cahier autobiographique,” in Delacroix 2009,
the Salon of 1827–28; see Delacroix 2009, vol. 2, displayed only in the pavilions of the various nations. vol. 2, pp. 1742–43.
p. 1469. The anecdote was reported by Henri Great Britain, which had set aside two-thirds of the 27. Courbet exhibited three paintings at the Salon
Monnier, June 4, 1828; see Delacroix 2000, p. 110. space for itself, chose not to display works of art. that year: The Bathers (see fig. 86), The Wrestlers
41. Angers 2012, pp. 115–16. 10. Delacroix 1935–38, vol. 3, pp. 248–49 (letter to (Szépművészeti Múzeum, Budapest), and The
42. Charles Philippe Larivière, in Loddé 2003, p. 86 Baron Haussmann, prefect of the Seine, March 21, Sleeping Spinner (Musée Fabre, Montpellier).
(letter to his father, Rome, December 4, 1827). 1855). 28. Louvre, RF 2638.
43. Pierre Narcisse Guérin, in Le Normand-­Romain, 11. Ibid., vol. 3, pp. 245–46 (letter to the “Ministre 29. Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, p. 633 (April 15, 1853);
Fossier, and Korchane 2005, p. 54, no. 45 (letter to d’Etat,” March 2, 1855). Norton translation in Delacroix 1995a, p. 182. See
Quatremère de Quincy, September 11, 1823). See also 12. Baudelaire, “Eugène Delacroix,” in Baudelaire 1855 also Paris–New York–Montpellier 2007–8.
Guérin in ibid., pp. 202–3, no. 414 (letter to (1976 ed.), vol. 2, p. 594; translation adapted from 30. Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, p. 929 (August 3, 1855);
Quatremère de Quincy, March 15, 1829). Jonathan Mayne’s version, in Baudelaire 1981, p. 141. translation adapted from Norton in Delacroix
44. Letter from Guérin to Paul Lemoyne, March 22, 13. Daniel Wilson acquired The Death of Sardanapalus 1995a, pp. 308–9.
1828. INHA, box 16, painter Pierre Guérin. in 1846. See “Correspondance d’Eugène Delacroix” 31. Louvre, RF 96.
45. Angers 2012, pp. 112–15. (letter to Philippe-­Eugène Pelouze, December 28, 32. Delacroix 1935–38, vol. 3, p. 257 (letter to Paul
46. For Guérin’s inversion of the principles of 1861), http://www.correspondance-­delacroix.fr Huet, April 21, [1855]).
David’s Intervention of the Sabine Women, see Angers /correspondances/bdd/correspondance/102. 33. Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, p. 910 (June 17, 1855).
2012, p. 122, and Korchane 2018, p. 278. 14. Delacroix 1935–38, vol. 3, pp. 250–51 (letter to 34. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 918 (June 30, 1855).
47. Angers 2012, pp. 50–52. Frédéric de Mercey, March 26, [1855]). 35. Courbet 1996, p. 100 (letter to his family,
48. Quoted in Delacroix 2009, vol. 2, p. 1738. 15. Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, pp. 890–91 (March 24, June 15, 1852); translation adapted from Chu’s
49. This paradox is discussed in Larue 1996. 1855). version in Courbet 1992, p. 107. Auguste Romieu
16. Delacroix 1935–38, vol. 3, p. 253 (letter to was the director of fine arts (comparable to today’s
Alexandre Dumas, April 6, [1855]): “I was later held minister of culture) at the time. No mention has been
Dominique de Font-­Réaulx back by all sorts of minor ailments and mishaps.” found in Delacroix’s Journal or correspondence to
Delacroix and the Exposition Universelle 17. Ibid., vol. 3, p. 251 (letter to Frédéric de Mercey, support Courbet’s remark.
of 1855 March 31, 1855). 36. Courbet 1996, pp. 222–23 (letter to Victor
18. Silvestre planned to publish biographical essays Hugo, November 28, 1864); translation adapted from
1. Delacroix 1854, p. 315. The painter had been on one hundred great artists of his time, from Ingres Chu’s version in Courbet 1992, p. 249. Hugo was in
elected a member of the Koninklijke Academie van to Courbet, illustrated with photographs of the exile in Guernsey at the time. Courbet had not yet
Beeldende Kunsten of Amsterdam in February 1854. creators and their works, in successive issues. But suffered at the hands of the police, but this letter may
2. Delacroix 1935–38, vol. 2, pp. 411–12 (letter to only the first few, devoted to Corot, Ingres, and be seen as foreshadowing his arrest after the Commune
the president of the Académie des Beaux-­Arts, Delacroix, appeared in the form he intended; these in 1871, his conviction, and the exile that followed.
December 7, 1849). Léon Cogniet, a former fellow and others were published as Histoire des artistes 37. On this matter, see the forthcoming publication
student from Guérin’s studio, was admitted as a vivants in 1856; see Silvestre 1856. of the colloquium “La Correspondance de Courbet,
member of the Académie that year. 19. Charles Baudelaire, “Eugène Delacroix,” in 20 Ans Après,” held at the Musée d’Orsay, Paris,
3. Delacroix 2014, pp. 248–49. Baudelaire 1855 (1976 ed.), vol. 2, pp. 596–97; January 2017. The conference was dedicated to
4. See Paris 2004. translation adapted from Mayne in Baudelaire 1981, research that has emerged since the invaluable
5. For Delacroix’s communication to George Sand, p. 143. Delacroix warmly thanked Baudelaire in a publication of Courbet’s Correspondance by Petra
see Delacroix 1935–38, vol. 2, pp. 349–50 (letter to letter dated June 10, 1855; see Delacroix 1935–38, ten-­Doesschate Chu (Courbet 1996).
George Sand, [May] 28, 1848). vol. 3, p. 266. 38. See Delacroix 1935–38, vol. 4, pp. 315–16 (letter
6. Delacroix was probably alluding here to the 20. Gérard’s quote is cited in Baudelaire 1846 (1976 to Francis Petit, May 2, 1862), and p. 320 (letter to
various demonstrations held by supporters of the ed.), vol. 2, p. 429. Petit, June 23, 1862); see also Hannoosh in Delacroix
leftist slate, whose manifestations were broken up 21. Baudelaire 1855 (1976 ed.), vol. 2, p. 590; 2009, vol. 2, p. 1397 n. 31.
several times by the National Guard, more closely translation adapted from Mayne, in Baudelaire 1981, 39. See Paris 2012–13; Minneapolis–London 2015–16.
aligned with the bourgeois slate. pp. 135–36. 40. See Paris–New York–Montpellier 2007–8.
7. Delacroix 1935–38, vol. 2, pp. 347–48 (letter to 22. Baudelaire, “Ingres,” in Baudelaire 1855 (1976 41. Baudelaire, “Eugène Delacroix,” in Baudelaire
Charles Soulier, May 8, 1848); translation adapted ed.), vol. 2, p. 584; translation adapted from Mayne 1855 (1976 ed.), vol. 2, p. 593; translation by Mayne
from Jean Stewart’s version in Delacroix 2001, in Baudelaire 1981, p. 130. in Baudelaire 1981, p. 139.
pp. 281–82. 23. Bruyas owned the following works by Delacroix: 42. See Paris–New York 1994–95, pp. 9–10, 380–81.
8. Allard 2005. cats. 10, 78, 114 in the present volume. 43. See Paris 2018.
9. Titled “The Great Exhibition of the Works of 24. After Dinner at Ornans, Palais des Beaux-­Arts, 44. Musée d’Orsay, Paris, bequest of Etienne
Industry of All Nations,” the London exhibition, Lille, inv. P 522. Moreau-­Nélaton, RF 729. See Paris 2011–12.
held in the spectacular Crystal Palace, was dedicated 25. See Paris–New York–Montpellier 2007–8, 45. See Paris 2017.
primarily to the progress of industry. The share pp. 174–81.

274 DELACROIX
 Checklist

Compiled by Asher Miller CAT. 2 CAT. 4

Female Academy Figure: Seated, Front View Self‑Portrait as Ravenswood
All works are by Eugène Delacroix and exhibited (Mademoiselle Rose) ca. 1821–24
in Paris and New York, unless otherwise noted. ca. 1820–23 Oil on canvas
Paintings are identified by their catalogue raisonné Oil on canvas 161/8 x 1211/16 in. (40.9 x 32.3 cm)
number in Johnson 1981–2002, abbreviated as “J” 321/8 x 255/8 in. (81.5 x 65 cm) Musée du Louvre, Paris, Département des Peintures
followed by the number. Pastels are identified by Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Nationalgalerie (RF 1953-­38), on deposit at the Musée National
their number in Johnson 1995; and prints by the (inv. NG 53/86) Eugène-­Delacroix
number in Delteil and Strauber 1997, abbreviated J4 J 64
as “D-­S” followed by the number. Citations to repr. p. 26 repr. p. 41
Delacroix’s Journal are identified by their page
numbers in Delacroix 2009. Provenance: the artist’s estate sale, Hôtel Drouot, Provenance: gift of the artist to Joseph‑Auguste
Paris, February 17–29, 1864, part of no. 200, to Carrier (until d. 1875; his estate sale, Hôtel Drouot,
Unless otherwise noted, the stamp ED found on Thoré; Théophile Thoré (from 1864); Paul Lacroix; Paris, May 5, 1875, not in catalogue, to art dealer);
many drawings in the catalogue is the one described Maurice Du Seigneur (d. Feb. 1892); F. Vieussa (in [art dealer, Paris, 1875; sold on May 6 to Robaut];
in Frits Lugt, Les marques de collections de dessins & 1893); [Georges Bernheim et Cie, Paris, ca. 1925]; Alfred Robaut, Paris (from 1875); Paul‑Arthur
d’estampes (http://www.marquesdecollections.fr/), Dr. Georges Viau, Paris (1926–d. 1939; acquired in Chéramy, Paris (bought by 1885–1908; his sale,
as no. 838a. November 1926); his estate (1939–48; first estate sale, Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, May 5–7, 1908, no. 165,
Hôtel Drouot, Paris, December 11, 1942, no. 98, but to Vedel, possibly for Chéramy); Vedel (in 1908);
unsold because it was then in the U.S.; third estate Paul‑Arthur Chéramy, Paris (until d. 1912; his estate
CAT. 1 sale, Galerie Charpentier, Paris, June 22, 1948, no. 4, sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, April 14–16, 1913, no. 26, to
Male Academy Figure: Half‑Length, Side View to Bader); Bader, New York (from 1948); comte Jamot); Paul Jamot, Paris (1913–d. 1939; his bequest
ca. 1818–20 Philippe de La Rochefoucauld, Château de Beaumont, to Société des Amis de Delacroix, Paris; transferred
Oil on paper laid down on canvas Montmirail (until 1951; his sale, Parke‑Bernet, New in 1953 to Louvre; on deposit at the Musée National
153/4 x 133/8 in. (40 x 34 cm) York, May 19, 1951, no. 56, to Nicholas Acquavella for Eugène-­Delacroix since 1994)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Pagliali); Bruno Pagliali, Mexico City (from 1951);
Promised Gift from the Karen B. Cohen Collection of [E. V. Thaw & Co., New York, 1985]; [Galerie Selected Exhibitions: Paris 1885, no. 179; Zürich–
Eugène Delacroix, in memory of Arthur G. Cohen Schmit, Paris, 1986; sold to Alte Nationalgalerie] Frankfurt 1987–88, no. 1; Paris–New York 2002–3,
J1 no. 108; Marseilles–Rovereto–Toronto 2009–10,
New York only Selected Exhibitions: Karlsruhe 2003–4, no. 50; no. 88 (Marseilles and Rovereto only); Madrid–
repr. p. 24 Madrid–Barcelona 2011–12, no. 4 Barcelona 2011–12, no. 5; Leipzig 2015–16, no. 25

Provenance: the artist’s estate sale, Hôtel Drouot, Edgar Ravenswood is the male protagonist of Sir
Paris, February 17–29, 1864, part of no. 200; possibly CAT. 3 Walter Scott’s historical novel The Bride of Lamermoor,
Théophile Thoré (from 1864); possibly H. Vever; Two Bearded Heads, after Veronese (detail from first published in 1819.
[A. Vuillier, Paris, until 1897; sold in February to “The Marriage at Cana”)
Mercier]; Monsieur Mercier, Lausanne (from 1897); 1820
by descent to H. E. Lombardet, Lausanne (until 1966; Oil on canvas CAT. 5
his sale, Lausanne, February 3, 1966); C. Sfezzo, 253/16 x 325/16 in. (64 x 82 cm) Nereid, after Rubens, detail from “The Landing
Lausanne (until 1987; sale, Christie’s, London, Tubacex S.A. of Maria de Medici at Marseilles”
November 27, 1987, no. 51, to London dealer); J 14 ca. 1822
[London art market, 1987–88]; Karen B. Cohen, New York only Oil on canvas
New York (from 1988) repr. p. 227 185/16 x 1415/16 in. (46.5 x 38 cm)
Kunstmuseum Basel – Öffentliche Kunstsammlung,
Selected Exhibitions: New York 1991, no. 1; New Provenance: the artist’s estate sale, Hôtel Drouot, Gift in Memory of Prof. Friedrich Rintelen, by
York 2000–2001, no. 28; Paris 2009–10, no. 83 Paris, February 17–29, 1864, no. 155, to Haro; Haro, His Friends, 1933 (inv. 1602)
Paris (from 1864); Monsieur Démellette (by 1927); J 16
Charles Lefèvre Démellette, Paris (by 1952); private repr. p. 13
collection, Paris; Sylvie Rosenfeld‑Panissol, Paris;
[Salander‑O’Reilly Galleries, New York, 1986–at Provenance: the artist’s estate sale, Hôtel Drouot,
least 1992]; Tubacex S.A. Paris, February 17–29, 1864, no. 172, to Burty;
Philippe Burty, Paris (1864–d. 1890; his estate sale,
Selected Exhibitions: Paris 1864b, no. 59; Zürich–
Frankfurt 1987–88, no. 29

275
Hôtel Drouot, Paris, March 2–3, 1891, no. 10); sale, 1904; died ca. 1938); her granddaughter, Madame The melancholic Italian poet Torquato Tasso
Hôtel Drouot, Paris, November 20, 1922, no. 45; Jacques Meunier, née Popelin; her family, by (1544–1595), author of the epic poem Gerusalemme
Georges Aubry, Paris (until 1933; his sale, Hôtel descent; Musée des Beaux‑Arts, Orléans (from 1995) Liberata (1581), was confined to an asylum from 1579
Drouot, Paris, March 11, 1933, no. 80, to to 1586 by his patron Alfonso II d’Este, duke of
Kunstmuseum) Selected Exhibitions: probably Paris (Salon) 1824, Ferrara. This was the subject of Lord Byron’s poem
part of no. 451; Paris 1864b, no. 102; Paris 1885, The Lament of Tasso (1817).
Selected Exhibitions: Zürich–Frankfurt 1987–88, no. 88; Paris (Mémorial) 1963, no. 54; Orléans
no. 131; Paris 2004, no. 16 1997–98, no. 203; Rouen 1998, no. 9; Paris–New
York 2002–3, no. 110 (New York only); Madrid– CAT. 9
Rubens’s cycle of paintings depicting scenes from Barcelona 2011–12, no. 10 Turk Mounting His Horse
the life of the French queen, the second wife of 1824
Henri IV, was commissioned for the Luxembourg This work and Orphan Girl in the Cemetery (fig. 9) are Aquatint; first state of two
Palace in 1621; they were moved to the Louvre in 1816. thought to have been exhibited together at the Salon Image 89/16 x 103/8 in. (21.8 x 26.4 cm); sheet 95/16 x
of 1824 under no. 451, as “Studies, same number” 113/16 in. (23.6 x 28.4 cm), trimmed within plate
(Études, même numéro), that is, as studies related to the The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York,
CAT. 6 prior painting in the catalogue, no. 450, Massacres at Purchase, The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The
Studies of a Damned Man, for “The Barque of Dante” Chios (fig. 5). Elisha Whittelsey Fund and Arthur Ross Foundation
1822 Gift, 1990 (1990.1113)
Pen, brown ink, black wash over black chalk and D-­S 11
graphite on laid paper CAT. 8 New York only
101/2 x 131/4 in. (26.7 x 33.7 cm) Tasso in the Hospital of St. Anna, Ferrara repr. p. 56
Stamped (lower left): ED 1824
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Oil on canvas Provenance: Adolphe Moreau fils, Paris (d. 1882);
Rogers Fund, 1961 (61.23) 1911/16 x 241/4 in. (50 x 61.5 cm) probably his son Etienne Moreau-­Nélaton (d. 1927);
New York only Signed (upper left): E. Delacroix [Libby Howie, London, until 1990; to MMA]
repr. p. 9 Private collection, Courtesy Nathan Fine Art,
Potsdam/Zürich Selected Exhibitions (this impression): New York
Provenance: the artist’s estate sale, Hôtel Drouot, J 106 1991, no. 74
Paris, February 17–29, 1864, possibly part of no. 305; repr. p. 70
possibly Pierre-­Jules Mêne, Paris (until d. 1879);
possibly his heirs (1879–99; P.-­J. Mêne sale, Hôtel Provenance: painted for Monsieur Formé (see CAT. 10
des Commissaires-­Priseurs, Paris, February 20–21, Moreau 1873, p. 92); [Susse, Paris, until ca. 1833; sold Portrait of Aspasie
1899, part of no. 52, to Degas); Edgar Degas, Paris to Dumas]; Alexandre Dumas père, Paris (from ca. ca. 1824
(1899?–d. 1917; his estate sale, Galerie Georges Petit, 1833; sold to Arago); Etienne Arago (sold to Susse); Oil on canvas
Paris, November 15–16, 1918, no. 97b, to Daragnès); [Susse, Paris; resold to Dumas]; Alexandre Dumas 317/8 x 259/16 in. (81 x 65 cm)
Jean-­Gabriel Daragnès, Neuilly (d. 1950); [Jacques père, Paris (sold to Petit); Monsieur Petit (sold to Musée Fabre, Montpellier Méditerranée Métropole
Seligmann, New York, by 1960–61; sold to MMA] Dumas); Alexandre Dumas fils (until 1865; his sale, (inv. 868.1.36)
Hôtel Drouot, Paris, March 28, 1865, no. 2, to J 79
Selected Exhibitions: Paris (Mémorial) 1963, no. 31; Delaroche); [Delaroche, in 1865]; Khalil Bey, Paris repr. p. 27
New York 1991, no. 20; New York 1997–98, no. 283 (until 1868; his sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, January
16–18, 1868, no. 18, to Haro); Haro, Paris (from Provenance: the artist’s estate sale, Hôtel Drouot,
This is a study for fig. 2. 1868); Carlin (until 1872; his sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, February 17–29, 1864, no. 192, to Andrieu;
Paris, April 29, 1872, no. 5, to Candamo); J. C. Pierre Andrieu, Paris (1864); Alfred Bruyas,
Candamo (from 1872); Monsieur C. G. de Candamo Montpellier (by August 1864–68; his gift to the city
CAT. 7 (until 1933; his sale, Galerie Charpentier, Paris, of Montpellier)
Head of an Old Greek Woman December 14–15, 1933, no. 10, to Clark); Sir Kenneth
1824 Clark, London (1933–54; sold to Marlborough); Selected Exhibitions: Paris 1864b, no. 302; Paris
Oil on canvas [Marlborough Fine Arts Ltd., London, 1954]; Emil (Mémorial) 1963, no. 43; Karlsruhe 2003–4, no. 53;
165/16 x 131/8 in. (41.5 x 33.3 cm) Bührle, Zürich (until d. 1956); his daughter, Richmond–Williamstown–Dallas–San Francisco
Musée des Beaux-­Arts, Orléans (inv. 96.2.1) Hortense Ande-­Bührle, Zürich (1956–at least 1981); 2004–5, no. 38; Madrid–Barcelona 2011–12, no. 14
J 77 private collection
New York only
repr. p. 25 Selected Exhibitions: Paris (Salon) 1824, not in CAT. 11
catalogue; Paris 1830c, no. 40; Paris 1846a, no. 97; Sketch after Goya’s “Caprichos”
Provenance: gift of the artist to Frédéric Leblond Paris 1855, no. 2929; Paris 1860, supp. no. 346; Paris ca. 1822–24
(until d. 1872); his widow (from 1872); their nephew, 1864b, no. 16; Paris 1885, no. 110; Zürich–Frankfurt Pen and brown ink on off‑white laid paper, laid down
Dr. E. Gebauer, Cléry‑Saint‑André (by 1885–1904; 1987–88, no. 9; Rouen 1998, no. 145; Karlsruhe 83/4 x 71/8 in. (22.1 x 18 cm)
his sale, Cléry‑Saint‑André, May 31, 1904, no. 15); 2003–4, no. 22; Winterthur 2008, no. 5; Madrid– Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Cambridge,
Madame Albert Esnault‑Pelterie, Paris (probably from Barcelona 2011–12, no. 11; Leipzig 2015–16, no. 54 Mass., Bequest of Frances L. Hofer (1979.110)
New York only
repr. p. 54

276 DELACROIX
Provenance: Louis Dimier, Paris (?until 1921; his Provenance: the artist’s estate sale, Hôtel Drouot, CAT. 15
sale, December 15, 1921, no. 31, as by Goya); Léon Paris, February 17–29, 1864, no. 75, to Piron; Achille Study of an Oriental Vest
Voillemot, Paris (possibly until 1946/49); Alfred Piron (1864–d. 1865; his estate sale, Hôtel Drouot, ca. 1822–26
Strölin, Paris (sold to Hofer); Philip and Frances L. Paris, April 21, 1865, no. 8, to Rivet); baron Charles Graphite on paper
Hofer, Cambridge, Mass. (until 1979; her bequest to Rivet (1865–d. 1872); his daughter, Madame Lajudie; 1415/16 x 161/8 in. (37.9 x 41 cm)
Harvard) by descent to private collection, Paris (until at least Inscribed: velours Rouge; stamped (lower left): ED
1981); private collection, New York (by 2003–at Private collection, New York
Selected Exhibitions: Frankfurt 1987–88, no. A 2; least 2004); [New York art market, 2008; sold to New York only
Paris–New York 2002–3, no. 117 (New York only) Musée Delacroix] repr. p. 55

This sheet features details from five of Goya’s Selected Exhibitions: London–Minneapolis–New Provenance: [Arezzo Arts, Inc.]; private collection
Caprichos, including, at the upper right, the bowing York 2003–4, no. 2
male figure Delacroix rendered in cat. 14. Selected Exhibitions: Paris 2009–10, no. 48
Delacroix befriended the English artist Fielding when
the latter was living in Paris in 1823 and 1824. Fielding For very probably the same garment, see cat. 14.
CAT. 12 painted a reciprocal portrait of Delacroix, which he
Study of Babouches exhibited at the Royal Academy, London, in 1827
ca. 1823–24 (now in the Musée National Eugène-Delacroix). CAT. 16
Oil on cardboard Study of Greek Costumes
61/2 x 81/16 in. (16.5 x 20.5 cm) ca. 1823–26
Musée du Louvre, Paris, Département des Peintures, CAT. 14 Graphite on paper
Bequest of Carle Dreyfus, 1953 (RF 1953-­4) Studies of Bindings, an Oriental Jacket, and Figures 12 x 9 in. (30.5 x 22.9 cm)
J 26 after Goya The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York,
repr. p. 56 ca. 1822–26 Promised Gift from the Karen B. Cohen Collection
Oil on canvas of Eugène Delacroix, in honor of Asher Ethan Miller
Provenance: the artist’s estate sale, Hôtel Drouot, 1911/16 x 24 in. (50 x 61 cm) New York only
Paris, February 17–29, 1864, part of no. 221, to Musée National Eugène-­Delacroix, Paris repr. p. 54
Calonne; Monsieur de Calonne (to Ricard); Gustave (inv. MD 2011‑1)
Ricard (until d. 1873; his estate sale, Hôtel Drouot, J L34 Provenance: Marcel Guérin, Paris (d. 1948); David
Paris, June 20, 1873, no. 37, to Sensier); Alfred repr. p. 54 Daniels, New York; [Arezzo Arts, Inc.]; Karen B.
Sensier, Paris (1873–d. 1877; his estate sale, Hôtel Cohen
Drouot, Paris, December 10–15, 1877, no. 3, to Provenance: the artist’s estate sale, Hôtel Drouot,
Gauchez, probably for Wilson); John Waterloo Paris, February 17–29, 1864, possibly part of no. 189; Selected Exhibitions: Paris 2009–10, no. 47
Wilson, Paris (until 1881; his sale, 3 Avenue Hoche, Philippe Burty, Paris (until d. 1890; his estate sale,
Paris, March 14–16, 1881, no. 147, to Malinet); Hôtel Drouot, Paris, March 2–3, 1891, no. 7, to
Malinet (from 1881); Auguste Courtin (until 1886; his Chéramy; Paul‑Arthur Chéramy, Paris (1891–1908; his CAT. 17
sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, March 29, 1886, no. 38, to sale, Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, May 5–7, 1908, Christ in the Garden of Olives (The Agony in the
Chéramy); Paul‑Arthur Chéramy, Paris (until 1908; no. 188, to Langweil); Florine Ebstein Langweil, Paris Garden)
his sale, Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, May 5–7, 1908, (from 1908; d. 1958); her daughter, Berthe Langweil 1824–26
no. 153, to Wedel (for Chéramy?); ?Wedel (from Noufflard (d. 1971); by descent to private collection, Oil on canvas
1908); Paul‑Arthur Chéramy (until d. 1912; his estate France; sale, Beaussant & Lefèvre, Paris, December 9 ft. 17/16 in. x 11 ft. 313/16 in. (2.8 x 3.4 m)
sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, April 14–16, 1913, no. 22, to 10, 2003, no. 64; [Jean-­François Heim, Basel, until Church of Saint-­Paul-­Saint-­Louis, Paris; lent by the
Schoeller); [Schoeller; from 1913; sold to Dreyfus]; 2011; sold to Musée Delacroix] Conservation des Oeuvres d’Art Religieuses et
Carle Dreyfus (1913–d. 1952; his bequest to Louvre) Civiles de la Ville de Paris and the Direction
Selected Exhibitions: Rouen 1998, no. 113; Madrid– Régionale des Affaires Culturelles d’Ile-­de-­France
Selected Exhibitions: Madrid–Barcelona 2011–12, Barcelona 2011–12, no. 6; Chantilly 2012–13, no. 8 (inv. COA‑PLO18/132)
no. 16; Chantilly 2012–13, no. 11; Paris 2014–15, no. 18 J 154
The objects depicted are (clockwise, from upper repr. p. 132
left): partial studies of two Carolingian missal
CAT. 13 bindings, the Gospel of Metz, possibly ca. 835–45, and Provenance: commissioned from the artist by the
Thales Fielding (1793–1837) the Gospel of Drogon, ca. 845–55 (both Bibliothèque Prefect of the Seine in 1824 for the church of
ca. 1824–25 nationale de France, Paris, inv. Latin 9383 and Latin Saint‑Paul‑Saint‑Louis, Paris
Oil on canvas 9388; as recognized by Charles T. Little in 2016); a
125/8 x 913/16 in. (32 x 25 cm) fragment of a Suliot jacket or vest; and a print by Selected Exhibitions: Paris (Salon) 1827–28,
Musée National Eugène-­Delacroix, Paris Francisco Goya, Which of them is the more overcome? no. 293; Paris 1855, no. 2908; Paris 1864b, no. 13;
(inv. MD 2009‑1) (Quien mas rendido?), etching, aquatint and drypoint, Paris 1885 no. 25; Paris (Mémorial) 1963, no. 89
J 70 plate 27 from Los Caprichos, 1799.
New York only
repr. p. 38

Checklist 277
CAT. 18 Provenance: Adolphe Moreau fils, Paris (d. 1882); no. 97; Zürich–Frankfurt 1987–88, no. 16; Karlsruhe
Reclining Female Nude: Back View probably his son Etienne Moreau-­Nélaton (d. 1927); 2003–4, no. 56
ca. 1824–26 [Neuville & Vivien, Paris, until 1931; sold to MMA]
Oil on canvas At a time when contemporary Italian brigands began
13 x 191/2 in. (33 x 49.5 cm) Selected Exhibitions (this impression): Frankfurt to appear in paintings exhibited at the Salon by artists
Private collection 1987–88, no. A 8; New York 1991, no. 81 such as Léopold Robert, Delacroix adopted the
J6 subject of this picture from canto 2, verse 16, of
repr. p. 23 This work and cat. 21 are two of five lithographs Byron’s poem Lara, which is set in the Middle Ages.
based on antique coins that Delacroix produced See Bandiera 1980.
Provenance: Frédéric Leblond (until d. 1872); in 1825; the others are D-S 43, 44, and 46. See
presumably his widow, Madame Leblond Howell 1994.
(from 1872); their nephew, Dr. E. Gebauer, CAT. 23
Cléry‑Saint‑André (by September 1, 1881–1904; Charles VI and Odette de Champdivers
his sale, Cléry‑Saint‑André, May 31, 1904, no. 17); CAT. 21 ca. 1825
Jules Strauss, Paris (by 1926–32; his sale, Galerie Studies of Twelve Greek and Roman Coins Oil on canvas
Georges Petit, Paris, December 15, 1932, no. 38, to 1825 14 x 103/4 in. (35.5 x 27.3 cm)
Weisweller); Weisweller (from 1932); [Brame et Lithograph; second state of four Signed (lower right): Eug. Delacroix
Lorenceau, Paris, 1987]; sale, Sotheby’s, New York, Image 95/16 x 12 in. (23.6 x 30.5 cm); sheet 115/8 x Pérez Simón Collection, Mexico (inv. 30957)
November 10, 1998, no. 58; private collection 157/16 in. (29.6 x 39.2 cm) J 110
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, repr. p. 16
Selected Exhibitions: Paris 1885, no. 85; Zürich– Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1931 (31.77.24)
Frankfurt 1987–88, no. 15 D-­S 47 Provenance: Pierre Duval le Camus, Paris (until
New York only 1827; his anonymous sale, Paris, April 17–18, 1827,
repr. p. 57 no. 38); Frédéric Leblond (by 1832–d. 1872);
CAT. 19 Dumas‑Descombes (in 1885); by descent to comtesse
Macbeth Consulting the Witches Provenance: Adolphe Moreau fils, Paris (d. 1882); Théobal de Vigneral, Paris (by 1963–at least 1981);
1825 probably his son Etienne Moreau-­Nélaton (d. 1927); private collection, Paris (in 1991); [Stair Sainty
Lithograph; third state of five [Neuville & Vivien, Paris, until 1931; sold to MMA] Matthiesen Gallery, London and New York, April
Image 129/16 x 97/8 in. (31.9 x 25.1 cm); sheet 193/4 x 1991]; [Richard L. Feigen, New York]; private
137/8 in. (50.2 x 35.2 cm) Selected Exhibitions (this impression): New York collection, New York; sale, Heritage Auctions, Dallas,
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1991, no. 82 November 9–10, 2006, no. 24070, bought in;
Rogers Fund, 1922 (22.63.19) [Salander‑O’Reilly Galleries, New York; to private
D-­S 40 collection]; private collection (until 2007; sale,
New York only CAT. 22 Sotheby’s, New York, October 23, 2007, no. 71);
repr. p. 69 Mortally Wounded Brigand Quenches His Thirst Pérez Simón Collection, Mexico City
ca. 1825
Provenance: [Maurice Le Garrec, Paris, until 1922; Oil on canvas Selected Exhibitions: Paris 1885, no. 73; New
sold to MMA] 1213/16 x 16 in. (32.5 x 40.7 cm) Orleans–New York–Cincinnati 1996–97, no. 12;
Signed (lower right): Eug. Delacroix Rouen 1998, no. 55; London–Minneapolis–New York
Selected Exhibitions (this impression): New York Kunstmuseum Basel – Öffentliche Kunstsammlung 2003–4, no. 62; Madrid–Barcelona 2011–12, no. 22
1991, no. 79 (inv. 1726)
J 162 The French king Charles VI (r. 1380–1422) was prone
This print, based on a scene in Shakespeare’s play, repr. p. 36 to fits of madness and violence but could sometimes
bears the caption: “MACBETH. / Toil and trouble / be calmed by his mistress, Odette de Champdivers
Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.” Provenance: Alexandre du Sommerard, Paris (1390–1425). He was the subject of an 1826 play by
(1825–d. 1842; his estate sale, Hôtel rue des Jeûneurs, Alexandre-­Jean-­Joseph de La Ville de Mirmont.
no. 16, Paris, December 11–13, 1843, no. 22);
CAT. 20 Monsieur A. Dugléré (by 1848–53; his sale, Hôtel des
Studies of Seven Greek Coins Ventes Mobilières, Paris, February 1, 1853, no. 43); CAT. 24
1825 Monsieur Bruissin (in 1864); Monsieur Dupont, The Duke of Orléans Showing His Lover
Lithograph; first state of five Orléans (in 1884); sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, March ca. 1825–26
Image 117/16 x 91/8 in. (29 x 23.2 cm); sheet 133/8 x 29, 1893, no. 14, bought in; Alfred Beurdeley, Paris Oil on canvas
105/16 in. (34 x 26.2 cm) (by 1900–d. 1919; his estate sale, Galerie Georges 133/4 x 101/16 in. (35 x 25.5 cm)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Harris Petit, Paris, May 6–7, 1920, no. 33, to Stang); J. B. Signed (lower left, on bed): EUG. DELACROIX
Brisbane Dick Fund, 1931 (31.77.27) Stang, Oslo (1920–at least 1930); [Eugène Blot, Paris, Museo Thyssen‑Bornemisza, Madrid (inv. 127;
D-­S 45 in 1937]; Kunstmuseum Basel (purchased 1939) 1977.19)
New York only J 111
repr. p. 57 Selected Exhibitions: Paris (Salon) 1827–28, repr. p. 17
no. 297; Paris 1885, no. 75; Paris (Mémorial) 1963,

278 DELACROIX
Provenance: Frédéric Leblond (in 1832); sale, no. 29; Rouen 1998, no. 147; London–Minneapolis– sold in May to Chéramy); Paul‑Arthur Chéramy, Paris
Schroth, Paris, March 6, 1843, no. 30; Frédéric Villot, New York 2003–4, no. 8 (London and Minneapolis (1885–d. 1912; his sale, Galerie Georges Petit, Paris,
Paris (until 1864; his sale, Hôtel des Commissaires‑ only); Madrid–Barcelona 2011–12, no. 28 May 5–7, 1908, no. 175, unsold; his estate sale, Hôtel
Priseurs, Paris, January 25, 1864, no. 12); Napoléon‑ Drouot, Paris, April 14–16, 1913, no. 25, to Koechlin);
Jérôme Bonaparte, prince de Montfort; comte This allegory was inspired by the catastrophic siege Raymond Koechlin (1913–d. 1931; his bequest to
Duchâtel (in 1885); Alfred Beurdeley (by 1912–d. 1919; of the city of Missolonghi by Ottoman forces, Musée des Arts Décoratifs)
his estate sale, Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, May 6–7, between April 1825 and April 1826, a major event in
1920, no. 34, to Nunès et Fiquet for d’Héricourt); the Greek War of Independence. Selected Exhibitions: Paris 1885, no. 175; Paris
Monsieur Schwob d’Héricourt (from 1920); [Paul (Mémorial) 1963, no. 76; Zürich–Frankfurt 1987–88,
Brame, Paris, 1967]; Mr. B. E. Bensinger, Beverly no. 23; Rouen 1998, no. 148
Hills, Calif. (in 1968); [Reid & Lefevre, London, by CAT. 27
1974–77; sold to Thyssen‑Bornemisza]; Thyssen‑ Combat of the Giaour and Hassan The Byzantine emperor Justinian (r. 527–65) is
Bornemisza Collection, Lugano (from 1977); Museo 1826 shown drafting the set of laws known as the Justinian
Thyssen‑Bornemisza, Madrid (from 1992) Oil on canvas Code. The painting for which it was a study was
231/2 x 287/8 in. (59.7 x 73.3 cm) commissioned by the state in 1826 for the Conseil
Selected Exhibitions: Paris 1832, no. 145; Paris 1885, Signed (lower left): Eug. Delacroix d’Etat in the Palais du Louvre; in 1832 it was moved to
no. 71; Zürich–Frankfurt 1987–88, no. 18; Rouen Art Institute of Chicago, Gift of Bertha Palmer the Palais d’Orsay, where it was destroyed during the
1998, no. 54; Madrid–Barcelona 2011–12, no. 23 Thorne, Rose Movius Palmer, Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Commune in 1871. It can be glimpsed in fig. 118.
M. Wood, and Mr. and Mrs. Gordon Palmer
(1962.966)
CAT. 25 J 114 CAT. 29
Count Demetrius de Palatiano (1794–1849) in repr. p. 33 Baron Schwiter (Louis Auguste Schwiter, 1805–1889)
Suliot Costume 1826
ca. 1825–26 Provenance: Alexandre Dumas père (ca. 1827–May Lithograph; only state
Oil on canvas 1848); Charles Mahler (May 1848–at least 1885); Image 85/8 x 77/8 in. (21.9 x 20 cm); sheet 115/8 x
133/8 x 101/4 in. (34 x 26 cm) Potter Palmer, Chicago (by 1889–d. 1902); his 83/4 in. (29.6 x 22.3 cm)
Signed (lower left): E.D. widow, Mrs. Berthe Honoré Palmer (1902–d. 1918; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York,
Národní Galerie, Prague (inv. O 11446) apparently kept at the Palmers’ Paris address between Purchase, Derald H. and Janet Ruttenberg Gift and
J 81a (in vol. 7, not vol. 3); see also J L80 1892 and at least 1910); their son Potter Palmer Jr. The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha
repr. p. 40 (until d. 1943); his widow, Mrs. Pauline Kohlsaat Whittelsey Fund, 1983 (1983.1170)
Palmer (1943–d. 1956); her heirs and their spouses D-­S 51
Provenance: A. Vidmann Sedlnitzý, Jaroměřice (1956–62; their gift to the Art Institute of Chicago) New York only
Castle (until 1955) and Národní Galerie, Prague repr. p. 38
(1955–63; placed on deposit by the Czech Selected Exhibitions: Paris 1826b, no. 44; Douai
Commission of Historical Monuments); Národní 1827, no. 94; rejected by the jury of the Paris Salon of Provenance: [R. M. Light & Co., Santa Barbara,
Galerie, Prague (from 1963) 1827–28; Paris 1829b, no. 107; Paris 1846a, no. 98; Calif., until 1983; sold to MMA]
Paris 1860, supp. no. 345; Paris 1864b, no. 78; Paris
selected exhibitions: Paris (Salon) 1827–28, no. 292 1885, no. 135; New York 1991, no. 2; Rouen 1998, Selected Exhibitions (this impression): New York
(probably this picture) no. 116; London–Minneapolis–New York 2003–4, 1991, no. 84
no. 76; Madrid–Barcelona 2011–12, no. 29; Paris
2014–15, no. 40
CAT. 26 CAT. 30
Greece on the Ruins of Missolonghi The subject of this painting (and cat. 87) is drawn Louis Auguste Schwiter (1805–1889)
1826 from Lord Byron’s poem The Giaour, first published 1826–27
Oil on canvas in 1813. Oil on canvas
825/16 x 577/8 in. (209 x 147 cm) 853/4 x 561/2 in. (217.8 x 143.5 cm)
Signed (lower left): Eug. Delacroix. Signed (lower left): Eug. Delacroix.
Musée des Beaux‑Arts, Bordeaux (inv. Bx E 439) CAT. 28 The National Gallery, London, Bought, 1918
J 98 Justinian Drafting His Laws, sketch (inv. NG3286)
repr. p. 72 1826 J 82
Oil on canvas repr. p. 39
Provenance: the artist, Paris (until 1852; sold in 221/16 x 181/2 in. (56 x 47 cm)
February to Musée des Beaux‑Arts, Bordeaux) Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris (inv. 27987) Provenance: the sitter (until d. 1889; his estate sale,
J 120 Hôtel Drouot, Paris, March 26–28, 1890, no. 4, to
Selected Exhibitions: Paris 1826a, not in catalogue; repr. p. 36 Montaignac; [Montaignac, Paris, 1890–June 1895;
London 1828, no. 15; Paris 1829a, no. 7; Paris 1829b, sold to Degas in exchange for three of his pastels]);
no. 138; Paris 1830a, no. 90; Paris 1830b, no. 195; Provenance: the artist’s estate sale, Hôtel Drouot, Edgar Degas, Paris (1895–d. 1917; his estate sale,
Paris (Mémorial) 1963, no. 111; Nantes–Paris–Piacenza Paris, February 17–29, 1864, no. 53, to Corot; Camille Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, March 26–27, 1918,
1995–96, no. 64; Bordeaux–Paris–Athens 1996–97, Corot (1864–d. 1875); Alfred Robaut (until 1885; no. 24, to National Gallery)

Checklist 279
Selected Exhibitions: rejected by the jury of the CAT. 33 Provenance: Georges Petit, Paris (until 1921; his sale,
Paris Salon of 1827–28; Paris (Mémorial) 1963, no. 75; Woman with a Parrot Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, March 4–5, 1921, no. 9);
New York 1997–98, no. 192; London–Minneapolis– 1827 [possibly Wildenstein, New York, 1944]; T. Edward
New York 2003–4, no. 52; Madrid–Barcelona 2011–12, Oil on canvas Hanley, Bradford, Pa. (by 1961–d. 1969); his widow,
no. 39; Minneapolis–London 2015–16, no. 4 95/8 x 1213/16 in. (24.5 x 32.5 cm) Tullah Innes Hanley (1969–at least 1970); private
Signed and dated (upper left): Eug. Delacroix. 1827. collection (from early 1970s)
Musée des Beaux‑Arts, Lyon, Gift of Monsieur
CAT. 31 Couturier de Royas, 1897 (inv. B‑566) Selected Exhibitions: Zürich 1987–88, no. 16
Death of Sardanapalus, sketch J9
1826–27 repr. p. 92
Oil on canvas CAT. 36
317/8 x 393/8 in. (81 x 100 cm) Provenance: Louis Joseph Auguste Coutan, Paris Faust
Musée du Louvre, Paris, Département des Peintures, (until 1829; his anonymous sale, Paris, March 9–10, Book by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, translated
Bequest of comtesse Paul de Salvandy, née Eugénie 1829, no. 50); Frédéric Leblond (by 1832–d. 1872); from the German by Philipp Albert Stapfer
Rivet, 1925 (RF 2488) Couturier de Royas (until 1897; his gift to Musée des 18 lithographs by Delacroix, including frontispiece
J 124 Beaux‑Arts, Lyon) portrait of the author and 17 illustrations
repr. p. 51 Printed and published by Charles Motte, Paris, 1828
Selected Exhibitions: Paris 1832, no. 141; Paris Overall: 163/16 x 105/8 x 115/16 in. (41.1 x 27 x 3.3 cm)
Provenance: gift of the artist to baron Charles Rivet (Mémorial) 1963, no. 109; Zürich–Frankfurt 1987– The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Rogers
(by 1849–d. 1872); his widow, baronne Rivet (1872–at 88, no. 27; Tokyo–Nagoya 1989, no. 34; Madrid– Fund, 1917 (17.12)
least 1885); their daughter Eugénie, comtesse Paul de Barcelona 2011–12, no. 44 D-­S 57–74
Salvandy (until 1925; her bequest to Louvre) New York only (not illustrated)

Selected Exhibitions: Paris 1864b, no. 144; Paris CAT. 34 Provenance: [E. Weyhe, New York, until 1917; sold
1885, no. 8; Nantes–Paris–Piacenza 1995–96, no. 65; Seated Turk (possibly Paul Barroilhet, 1805–1871) to MMA]
London–Minneapolis–New York 2003–4, no. 78; ca. 1827–30
Winterthur 2008, no. 9; Madrid–Barcelona 2011–12, Oil on canvas Selected Exhibitions (this copy): New York 1991,
no. 30; Leipzig 2015–16, no. 56 185/16 x 1415/16 in. (46.5 x 38 cm) no. 85; Paris–New York 2002–3, no. 120 (New
Musée du Louvre, Paris, Département des Peintures York only)
This is a sketch for fig. 20, of which cat. 104 is a (RF 1953-­37), on deposit at the Musée National
replica. Eugène-­Delacroix This epic tragedy, written in 1808 in the form of a
J D13 drama in verse, recounts the corruption of Faust by
New York only the demon Mephistopheles, who has made a bet with
CAT. 32 repr. p. 56 God that he can win the protagonist to his side.
A Lady and Her Valet
ca. 1826–29 Provenance: Gérard (in November 1879); P. Tesse;
Oil on canvas Gérard fils (until 1892; sold in February to CAT. 37
95/8 x 1213/16 in. (24.5 x 32.5 cm) Bernheim); [Bernheim‑Jeune, Paris, 1892–93; sold in Mephistopheles Flying over the City (Study for
Private collection, courtesy of Art Cuéllar‑Nathan February to Chéramy], Paul‑Arthur Chéramy, Paris “Faust,” plate 1)
J8 (1893–1908; his sale, Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, ca. 1825–27
repr. p. 157 May 5–7, 1908, no. 163, to Vitta); baron Vitta, Paris Pen and brown ink on wove paper
(1908–ca. 1934; gift to the Atelier Delacroix, Paris; 913/16 x 71/2 in. (25 x 19 cm)
Provenance: the artist’s estate sale, Hôtel Drouot, transferred in 1953 to Louvre) Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge,
Paris, February 17–29, 1864, no. 72, to Haro; Haro, Mass., Bequest of Philip Hofer (TypDr 815.D320.28f
Paris (from 1864); baron Joseph Vitta (in 1926); Selected Exhibitions: Madrid–Barcelona 2011–12, [6]Sz 3)
?Roger de la Palme; sale, February 1963, possibly to no. 46; Chantilly 2012–13, no. 10 New York only
Dubourg; [Jacques Dubourg, 1963; sold to Nathan]; repr. p. 64
Dr. Peter Nathan, Zürich (1963–d. 2001); his estate;
private collection CAT. 35 Provenance: the artist’s estate sale, Hôtel Drouot,
A Greek and a Turk in an Interior Paris, February 17–29, 1864, possibly part of no. 391;
Selected Exhibitions: Zürich–Frankfurt 1987–88, late 1820s said to have been in the Villot, Forgier, Sensier, and
no. 26; Karlsruhe 2003–4, no. 54 Watercolor on paper Doria collections (without documentation); [Nicolas
611/16 x 97/16 in. (17 x 24 cm) Rauch, Geneva, until 1960; sold to Hofer]; Philip
Signed (lower right): Eug. Delacroix Hofer, Cambridge, Mass. (1960–d. 1984; his bequest
Private collection to Houghton)
New York only
repr. p. 15 Selected Exhibitions: Frankfurt 1987–88, no. E 2

280 DELACROIX
CAT. 38 Caption, introduced in the third state: Faust— Provenance: see cat. 38
Faust, plate 1: Mephistopheles Aloft Heurex qui peut conserver l’espérance de surnager
1826/27 sur cet océan d’erreurs! . . . / . . . l’esprit a beau Caption: Meph: Ce que vous avez de mieux à faire,
Lithograph on chine collé; first state of seven deployer ses ailes, le corps, hélas! n’en a point à y c’est de jurer sur la parole du maître . . . / . . . tenez
Image 1115/16 x 913/16 in. (30.4 x 25 cm); sheet 211/2 x ajouter. (Faust—Happy the man who can still hope to vous en aux mots: vous êtes sur d’entrer par la grande
141/4 in. (54.6 x 36.2 cm) swim to safety in this sea of errors! . . . Alas! it is so porte au temple de la vérité. (Mephistopheles: Here,
Petit Palais, Musée des Beaux‑Arts de la Ville de hard to find corporeal wings that match those of the too it’s best to listen to a single teacher and swear by
Paris, Collection Dutuit (inv. GDUT1821) human mind.) every word he utters. Make it a principle to give your
D-­S 58 word of allegiance! You then will enter by the one
New York only safe gate into the temple of certitude.)
repr. p. 64 CAT. 41
Faust, plate 4: Faust, Wagner, and the Poodle
Provenance: Eugène Dutuit (until d. 1886) and his 1826/27 CAT. 44
brother Auguste Dutuit, Paris (until d. 1902); their Lithograph; first state of four Faust and Mephistopheles in the Tavern (Study for
bequest to the city of Paris; Musée du Petit Palais, Image 93/16 x 81/16 in. (23.3 x 20.4 cm); sheet 181/8 x “Faust,” plate 7)
Paris (from December 11, 1902) 123/16 in. (46 x 31 cm) 1825/26
Petit Palais, Musée des Beaux‑Arts de la Ville de Ink wash in shades of gray to black over graphite on
Caption, introduced in the second state: . . . De Paris, Collection Dutuit (inv. GDUT1828) wove paper
temps en temps j’aime à voir le vieux Père, / Et je me D-­S 61 105/8 x 811/16 in. (27 x 22 cm)
garde bien de lui romper en Visière . . . (I like to see New York only Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge,
the Old Man now and then, and take good care to repr. p. 65 Mass., Bequest of Philip Hofer (TypDr 815.D320.28f
keep on speaking terms.) [2] Sz 3)
Provenance: see cat. 38 New York only
repr. p. 66
CAT. 39 Caption: Il grogne et n’ose vous aborder: Il se couche
Faust, plate 2: Faust in His Study sur le ventre: / Il remue la queue. . . . (It snarls and Provenance: the artist’s estate sale, Hôtel Drouot,
1826/27 hesitates, lies down on its belly, it wags its tail. . . .) Paris, February 17–29, 1864, probably no. 386; Albert
Lithograph; first state of eight, with remarques Pontremoli, Paris (until d. 1923; his estate sale, Hôtel
Image 911/16 x 71/16 in. (24.6 x 18 cm); sheet 143/4 x Drouot, Paris, June 11, 1924, no. 19, to Petit);
113/16 in. (37.5 x 28.4 cm) CAT. 42 [Georges Petit, Paris, from 1924]; Georges Aubry,
Petit Palais, Musée des Beaux‑Arts de la Ville de Faust, plate 5: Mephistopheles Appearing to Faust Paris (until 1933; his sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, March
Paris, Collection Dutuit (inv. GDUT1822) 1826/27 11, 1933, no. 66); Maurice Gobin, Paris (until ca.
D-­S 59 Lithograph; first state of five 1935; sold to Hofer); Philip Hofer, Cambridge, Mass.
repr. p. 64 Image 101/4 x 83/8 in. (26 x 21.3 cm); sheet 135/16 x (ca. 1935–d. 1984; his bequest to Houghton)
107/16 in. (33.8 x 26.5 cm)
Provenance: see cat. 38 Petit Palais, Musée des Beaux‑Arts de la Ville de Selected Exhibitions: Frankfurt 1987–88, no. E 13
Paris, Collection Dutuit (inv. GDUT1823)
Caption, introduced in the third state: Pauvre crâne D-­S 62
vide que me veux tu dire avec ton grincement New York only CAT. 45
hideux? (You empty skull, why do you bare your repr. p. 65 Faust, plate 7: Mephistopheles in Auerbach’s Tavern
teeth at me?) 1826
Provenance: see cat. 38 Lithograph; first state of six
Image 105/8 x 83/4 in. (27 x 22.3 cm); sheet 189/16 x
CAT. 40 Caption, introduced in the second state: Meph: 12 in. (47.1 x 30.5 cm)
Faust, plate 3: Faust and Wagner Pourquoi tout ce vacarme? que demande Monsieur? Petit Palais, Musée des Beaux‑Arts de la Ville de
1826/27 qu’n a-­t’il pour son service? (Mephistopheles: What’s Paris, Collection Dutuit (inv. GDUT1827)
Lithograph; first state of seven, with remarques all the noise? Sire, how can I be of service?) D-­S 64
Image 711/16 x 105/16 in. (19.6 x 26.2 cm); sheet 105/8 x New York only
143/8 in. (27 x 36.5 cm) repr. p. 66
Petit Palais, Musée des Beaux‑Arts de la Ville de CAT. 43
Paris, Collection Dutuit (inv. GDUT1832) Faust, plate 6: Mephistopheles Receiving the Student Provenance: see cat. 38
D-­S 60 1826/27
New York only Lithograph; first state of two Caption, introduced in the second state:—Au feu, à
repr. p. 64 Image 103/8 x 811/16 in. (26.4 x 22 cm); sheet 123/8 x l’aide, l’enfer s’allume.—Sorcellerie! jettez vous sur
101/8 in. (31.4 x 25.7 cm) lui . . . son affaire ne sera pas longue. (I’m burning!
Provenance: see cat. 38 Petit Palais, Musée des Beaux‑Arts de la Ville de I’m on fire! It’s black magic! Stab him! The fellow is
Paris, Collection Dutuit (inv. GDUT1824[B]) outside the law!)
D-­S 63
New York only
repr. p. 65

Checklist 281
CAT. 46 Caption, introduced in the third state: Meph: Il est D-­S 69
Faust, Marguerite, and Mephistopheles in the Street bien hardi à moi de m’introduire aussi brusquement New York only
(Study for “Faust,” plate 8) chez ces Dames, je leur en demande un million de repr. p. 67
ca. 1825–27 pardons. . . . (Mephistopheles: I know I am intrud-
Pen, pencil, and brown wash on wove paper ing, unannounced, and I hope you ladies will Provenance: see cat. 38
97/16 x 71/2 in. (24 x 19 cm) pardon me. . . .)
Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, Caption: Meph:—Il nous faut gagner promptement
Mass., Bequest of Philip Hofer (TypDr 815.D320.28f au large. (Mephistopheles: We must make ourselves
[3] Sz 3) CAT. 49 scarce at once.)
New York only Faust, plate 10: Marguerite at the Spinning Wheel
repr. p. 66 1826/27
Lithograph; first state of six, with remarques CAT. 52
Provenance: the artist’s estate sale, Hôtel Drouot, Image 83/4 x 71/16 in. (22.2 x 18 cm); sheet 131/4 x Faust, plate 13: Marguerite in Church
Paris, February 17–29, 1864, probably no. 387; Albert 915/16 in. (33.7 x 25.3 cm) 1826/27
Pontremoli, Paris (until d. 1923; his estate sale, Hôtel Petit Palais, Musée des Beaux‑Arts de la Ville de Lithograph; second state of five
Drouot, Paris, June 11, 1924, no. 18, to Godefroy); Paris, Collection Dutuit (inv. GDUT1829) Image 105/8 x 87/8 in. (27 x 22.5 cm); sheet 131/4 x
Godefroy (from 1924); Philip Hofer, Cambridge, D-­S 67 101/2 in. (33.7 x 26.7 cm)
Mass. (until d. 1984; his bequest to Houghton) New York only Petit Palais, Musée des Beaux‑Arts de la Ville de
repr. p. 67 Paris, Collection Dutuit (inv. GDUT1833)
Selected Exhibitions: Frankfurt 1987–88, no. E 15 D-­S 70
Provenance: see cat. 38 New York only
repr. p. 67
CAT. 47 Caption, introduced in the second state: Sans lui
Faust, plate 8: Faust Trying to Seduce Marguerite l’existence / N’est qu’un lourd fardeau / Ce monde si Provenance: see cat. 38
1826/27 beau / N’est qu’un tombeau / Dans son absence.
Lithograph; first state of seven (Where he is not, is like the grave, and all my world Caption: Marg:—Malheureuse! ah! si je pouvais me
Image 101/2 x 81/2 in. (26.7 x 21.6 cm); sheet 139/16 x is turned to gall.) soustraire aux pensées qui se succedent en tumulte
103/4 in. (34.5 x 27.3 cm) dans mon âme et s’elévent contre moi / Le mauvais
Petit Palais, Musée des Beaux‑Arts de la Ville de Esprit.—La colère de Dieu fond sur toi! la trompette
Paris, Collection Dutuit (inv. GDUT1825) CAT. 50 sonne . . . Malheur à toi. / Choeur.—Judex ergo sum
D-­S 65 Faust, plate 11: Duel between Faust and Valentin sedebit, / Quid quid latet apparebit. / Nil inultum
New York only 1826/27 remanebit. (Marguerite: Alas! Could I but escape
repr. p. 66 Lithograph; first state of six, with remarques these thoughts that come at me from every side, do
Image 91/16 x 117/16 in. (23 x 29 cm); sheet 11 x 1415/16 in. what I will! Spirit: Feel God’s wrath! Hear the
Provenance: see cat. 38 (28 x 38 cm) trumpet sound . . . your heart brought back again to
Petit Palais, Musée des Beaux‑Arts de la Ville de burn in torment. . . . Choir: When the Judge will sit,
Caption, introduced in the second state: Faust—Ma Paris, Collection Dutuit (inv. GDUT1830) that which is hidden will appear. Nothing will remain
belle Demoiselle, oseraisje vous offrir mon bras et D-­S 68 unpunished.)
vous reconduire chez vous? (Faust: My lovely young New York only
lady, may I perhaps venture to give you my arm and repr. p. 67
be your escort home?) CAT. 53
Provenance: see cat. 38 Faust, plate 14: Faust and Mephistopheles in the Harz
Mountains
CAT. 48 Caption, introduced in the third state: Meph:— 1826/27
Faust, plate 9: Mephistopheles Introduces Himself at Pousse . . . Val.— oh! . . . Meph:— Voila mon Lithograph; first state of seven, with remarques
Martha’s House rustaud apprivoisé. (Mephistopheles: Now strike! . . . Image 91/2 x 81/4 in. (24.2 x 21 cm); sheet 145/16 x
1827 Valentine: What pain! . . . Mephistopheles: There, 1013/16 in. (36.3 x 27.5 cm)
Lithograph; first state of seven, with remarques we have tamed that lout! Night.) Petit Palais, Musée des Beaux‑Arts de la Ville de
Image 97/16 x 715/16 in. (24 x 20.2 cm); remarques 16 x Paris, Collection Dutuit (inv. GDUT1834[A])
125/8 in. (40.7 x 32 cm); sheet 17 x 127/8 in. (43.2 x D-­S 71
32.7 cm) CAT. 51 New York only
Petit Palais, Musée des Beaux‑Arts de la Ville de Faust, plate 12: Mephistopheles and Faust Fleeing after repr. p. 68
Paris, Collection Dutuit (inv. GDUT1826) the Duel
D-­S 66 1826/27 Provenance: see cat. 38
New York only Lithograph; second state of seven, with remarques
repr. p. 47 Image 103/8 x 87/8 in. (26.3 x 22.5 cm); sheet 135/16 x Caption, introduced in the third state: Meph:—
113/16 in. (33.8 x 28.4 cm) Nous sommes encore loin du terme de notre course.
Provenance: see cat. 38 Petit Palais, Musée des Beaux‑Arts de la Ville de (Mephistopheles: This way, it’s too long until we
Paris, Collection Dutuit (inv. GDUT1831) reach our destination.)

282 DELACROIX
CAT. 54 CAT. 56 Provenance: [Brame & Lorenceau, Paris, until
Faust, plate 15: Marguerite’s Ghost Appearing to Faust Faust, plate 17: Faust with Marguerite in Prison 1986]; [Paul Rosenberg & Co., New York, 1986];
1826/27 1826/27 Karen B. Cohen, New York (from 1986)
Lithograph; first state of six, with remarques Lithograph; first state of seven
Image 107/8 x 1313/16 in. (27.7 x 35.1 cm); sheet 121/16 x Image 913/16 x 81/16 in. (25 x 20.5 cm); sheet 133/16 x Selected Exhibitions: Frankfurt 1987–88, no. I 17;
171/8 in. (30.7 x 43.5 cm) 1013/16 in. (33.5 x 27.5 cm) New York 1991, no. 88; London–Minneapolis–New
Petit Palais, Musée des Beaux‑Arts de la Ville de Petit Palais, Musée des Beaux‑Arts de la Ville de York 2003–4, no. 173 (Minneapolis and New York
Paris, Collection Dutuit (inv. GDUT1835) Paris, Collection Dutuit (inv. GDUT1837) only); Paris 2009–10, no. 76
D-­S 72 D-­S 74
New York only New York only
repr. p. 68 repr. p. 68 CAT. 59
Wild Horse
Provenance: see cat. 38 Provenance: see cat. 38 1828
Lithograph; first state of two
Caption, introduced in the third state: Meph: Laisse Caption, introduced in the second state: Faust— Image 9 x 91/4 in. (22.9 x 23.5 cm); sheet 123/16 x
cet objet, on ne se trouve jamais bien de le Reviens à toi! un seul pas et tu es libre . . . / 101/4 in. (31 x 26 cm)
regarder . . . tu as bien entendu raconter l’histoire de Meph:— . . . Que de paroles inutiles! que de delais et The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York,
meduse? Faust: Assurément ce sont là les yeux d’un d’incertitudes! / mes chevaux frissonnent: l’aube Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1931 (31.77.20)
mort, qu’une / main amie n’a point fermés; c’est-­là le blanchit l’horizon. (Faust: Be sensible, I beg you! One D-­S 78
sein que Marguerite m’a livre, c’est le corps charmant step, just one! and you’ll be free . . . Mephistopheles: New York only
que j’ai possédé. (Mephistopheles: Leave that Futile faintheartedness! Delaying and prattling! My repr. p. 45
alone—it can only do harm! . . . You’ve surely heard horses are trembling; there’s a first glimmer of dawn.)
about Medusa! Faust: I know those are the eyes of Provenance: Adolphe Moreau fils, Paris (d. 1882);
someone dead, eyes that no loving hand has closed. probably his son Etienne Moreau-­Nélaton (d. 1927);
That is the breast which Gretchen let me press, that CAT. 57 [Neuville & Vivien, Paris, until 1931; sold to MMA]
the sweet body which give me joy.) Wild Horse Felled by a Tiger
1828 Selected Exhibitions (this impression): New York
Lithograph with chine collé; first state of four 1991, no. 90
CAT. 55 Image 83/4 x 111/4 in. (22.2 x 28.6 cm); sheet 811/16 x
Faust, plate 16: Faust and Mephistopheles Galloping 1013/16 in. (23 x 27.4 cm)
on Walpurgis Night The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Rogers CAT. 60
1826 Fund, 1922 (22.63.43) Studies of a Lion, from Sketchbook with Views of Tours,
Lithograph; first state of five, with remarques D-­S 77 France and Its Environs, ca. 1824–29
Image 83/8 x 117/16 in. (21.2 x 29 cm); sheet 1011/16 x New York only Graphite on wove paper
137/16 in. (27.2 x 34.1 cm) repr. p. 44 415/16 x 711/16 in. (12.5 x 19.5 cm)
Petit Palais, Musée des Beaux‑Arts de la Ville de Dated (lower left): jeudi 12 fevrier
Paris, Collection Dutuit (inv. GDUT1836) Provenance: [Maurice Le Garrec, Paris, until 1922; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Gift of
D-­S 73 sold to MMA] Alexander and Grégoire Tarnopol, 1969 (69.165.2)
New York only New York only
repr. p. 68 Selected Exhibitions (this impression): Frankfurt repr. p. 43
1987–88, no. I 18; New York 1991, no. 89; New York
Provenance: see cat. 38 2000–2001, no. 36 Provenance: the artist’s estate sale, Hôtel Drouot,
Paris, February 17–29, 1864, probably part of
Caption, introduced in the second state: Faust:— Caption, introduced in the second state: Cheval no. 664; Alexander Tarnopol and his brother
Que vois-­je remuer autour de ce gibet? . . . / . . . ils sauvage terrassé par un tigre Grégoire Tarnopol, New York (until 1969)
vont et viennent, ils se baissent et se relevent. Meph:
— C’est une assemblée de Sorciers. Faust: — Ils Selected Exhibitions: New York 1991, part of
sèment et consacrent. / Meph:—En avant! (Faust: CAT. 58 no. 72; Tours 1998, part of no. 15
What are you doing by that stone block?. . . . They Wild Horse Felled by a Tiger
soar up, and then down; they are bending and 1828 Delacroix used the sketchbook from which this sheet
bowing. Mephistopheles: A witches’ coven. Faust: Watercolor and gouache over pen and ink, with derives during a visit to his elder brother Charles
They strew and consecrate. Mephistopheles: On! touches of gum arabic on wove paper Henry at Tours, from late October to early
Hurry on!) 55/16 x 715/16 in. (13.5 x 20.1 cm) November 1828. But the date on this study, Thursday,
Signed (lower left): EugDelacroix [g and D in ligature] February 12, must refer either to 1824 or to 1829, after
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, the artist returned to Paris.
Promised Gift from the Karen B. Cohen Collection
of Eugène Delacroix, in memory of Alexandre P.
Rosenberg
New York only
repr. p. 44

Checklist 283
CAT. 61 CAT. 64 CAT. 66
Sketches of Tigers and Men in Sixteenth-Century The Murder of the Bishop of Liège Lion of the Atlas Mountains
Costume 1829 1829–30
ca. 1828–29 Oil on canvas Lithograph; probably second state of four
Watercolor, pen and iron gall ink, and graphite on 3513/16 x 4511/16 in. (91 x 116 cm) 13 x 183/8 in. (33 x 46.7 cm)
ivory laid paper with blue fibers discolored to buff Musée du Louvre, Paris, Département des Peintures The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York,
155/8 x 201/16 in. (39.7 x 51 cm) (RF 1961-­13) Bequest of Susan Dwight Bliss, 1966 (67.630.13)
Art Institute of Chicago, David Adler Memorial Fund J 135 D-­S 79
(1971.309R) repr. p. 61 New York only
New York only repr. p. 45
repr. p. 46 Provenance: Ferdinand Philippe, duc d’Orléans
(1831–d. 1842); his widow (1842–53; her sale, Hôtel Provenance: Susan Dwight Bliss, New York (until
Provenance: [Otto Wertheimer, until 1971; sold to des Ventes, Paris, January 18, 1853, no. 17, to Villot); d. 1966)
Art Institute of Chicago] Frédéric Villot (1853–66; his sale, Hôtel des
Commissaires‑Priseurs, Paris, February 11, 1865, no. 1, Selected Exhibitions (this impression): New York
Selected Exhibitions: Frankfurt 1987–88, no. I 9 bought in; sold on August 19, 1866, to Durand‑Ruel); 1991, no. 91
[Durand‑Ruel, Paris, from 1866; sold to Bey]; Khalil
Bey, Paris (until 1868; his sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, Caption (lower margin): LION DE L’ATLAS.
CAT. 62 January 16–18, 1868, no. 17, to Durand‑Ruel);
Nineteen Studies of Heads and Skulls of Lions [Durand‑Ruel, 1868; sold in April to Francis Petit for
ca. 1828–30 Cassin]; Madame de Cassin, later marquise Landolfo CAT. 67
Graphite on paper Carcano (1868–1912; her sale, Galerie Georges Petit, Young Tiger Playing with Its Mother (Study of
12 x 181/2 in. (30.5 x 47 cm) Paris, May 30–June 1, 1912, no. 23, to Tauber); Two Tigers)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Léonard Tauber, Paris (1912–d. 1944); Tauber heirs 1830
Promised Gift from the Karen B. Cohen Collection of (1944; sold to Gérard); Gérard (from 1944); Léon Oil on canvas
Eugène Delacroix, in memory of Charles C. Bassine Salavin (until 1961; to Louvre) 519/16 x 769/16 in. (131 x 194.5 cm)
New York only Signed and dated (lower left): Eug. Delacroix. / 1830.
repr. p. 43 Selected Exhibitions: Paris 1829b, no. 108; Paris Musée du Louvre, Paris, Département des Peintures,
1830a, no. 58; London 1830, no. 328; Paris (Salon) Bequest of Maurice Cottier, 1881 (with life interest),
Provenance: de Vallière (late 19th century); 1831, 3rd supplement, no. 2949; Paris (Mémorial) entered the collection in 1903 (RF 1943)
[Georges Ambroselli, Paris]; [Saint Germain Arts, 1963, no. 136; Rouen 1998, no. 59 J 59
Ltd]; Karen B. Cohen, New York repr. p. 42
The subject is drawn from Sir Walter Scott’s histori-
Selected Exhibitions: Frankfurt 1987–88, no. I 8; cal novel Quentin Durward, first published in 1823. Provenance: thought to have been purchased from
Paris 2009–10, no. 79 the artist by Auguste Thuret (probably 1830–at least
1862); [Francis Petit, Paris, in 1865]; Maurice Cottier
CAT. 65 (until d. 1881; his bequest to the Louvre with life
CAT. 63 Royal Tiger interest to his wife; entered Louvre in 1903)
Tiger Lying at the Entrance of Its Lair 1829
ca. 1828–30 Lithograph; second state of five Selected Exhibitions: Paris 1830c, no. 55; Paris
Etching, drypoint, and roulette; between fourth Image 1215/16 x 187/16 in. (32.8 x 46.9 cm); sheet 131/16 x (Salon) 1831, no. 516; Paris 1861–62; Paris 1885, no. 51;
and fifth states 185/8 in. (33.2 x 47.3 cm) Paris (Mémorial) 1963, no. 134; Karlsruhe 2003–4,
Image 51/2 x 39/16 in. (14 x 9 cm); sheet 91/16 x 81/4 in. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, no. 82; Madrid–Barcelona 2011–12, no. 73
(23 x 20.9 cm) Bequest of Susan Dwight Bliss, 1966 (67.630.7)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, D-­S 80
Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1927 (27.10.7) New York only CAT. 68
D-­S 24 repr. p. 44 The Battle of Poitiers
New York only 1830
repr. p. 43 Provenance: Susan Dwight Bliss, New York (until Oil on canvas
d. 1966) 447/8 x 571/2 in. (114 x 146 cm)
Provenance: John Waterloo Wilson, Paris (d. 1883; Signed and dated (lower left): E. Delacroix, 1830
his estate sale, Sotheby’s, London, April 22–23, 1887, Selected Exhibitions (this impression): New York Musée du Louvre, Paris, Département des Peintures
no. 5); [Arthur H. Harlow & Co., New York, until 1991, no. 92 (RF 3153)
1927; sold to MMA] J 141
Caption, introduced in the third state: TIGRE ROYAL New York only
repr. p. 105
Royal Tiger and Lion of the Atlas Mountains (cat. 66)
were published as pendants by Gaugain, Paris, in Provenance: the artist (until 1831; commissioned in
January 1830. 1829 by the duchesse de Berry and apparently

284 DELACROIX
delivered to her; she fled to England during the July Signed and dated (lower left): Eug. Delacroix 1831 1987–88, no. 38; Rouen 1998, no. 60; London–
Revolution of 1830, leaving it unpaid for; her sale, Musée des Beaux‑Arts, Bordeaux (inv. Bx E 820) Minneapolis–New York 2003–4, no. 60; Madrid–
Paris, December 8, 1830, no. 10, but apparently J 147 Barcelona 2011–12, no. 75
withdrawn, the artist having regained possession, New York only
possibly by obtaining an injunction to prevent its repr. p. 106 The scene is drawn from Charles Robert Maturin’s
sale; in November 1831 he arranged for its sale by novel Melmoth the Wanderer, published in English in
Monsieur Paillet, commissaire‑expert des Musées Provenance: Bouruet‑Aubertot (in 1860); Amédée 1820 and in French the following year.
Royaux); vicomte d’Osembray (possibly from 1831, Larrieu, Bordeaux (in May 1869); John Saulnier,
certainly by 1855–at least 1864); Marmontel (until Bordeaux (by 1885–86; his estate sale, Hôtel Drouot,
1868; his sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, May 11–14, 1868, Paris, June 5, 1886, no. 34, to the city of Bordeaux CAT. 72
no. 6); Monsieur Edwards (until 1870; his sale, Hôtel for the Musée des Beaux‑Arts) Jewish Woman of Tangier
Drouot, Paris, March 7, 1870, no. 4, to Aguado); 1832
Eugène Pereire (in 1885); [Barbazanges, in Selected Exhibitions: Paris 1831; Paris 1855, no. 2925; Pencil on paper
December 1921]; [Hodebert, in 1925]; [Matthiesen, Paris 1860, supplement no. 344; Paris 1885, no. 196; 11 x 8 in. (27.9 x 20.3 cm)
Berlin, by 1926–31; sold to Louvre] Paris (Mémorial) 1963, no. 142; Zürich–Frankfurt Dated (lower right): 28 jr
1987–88, no. 39; Rouen 1998, no. 152; Karlsruhe Private collection
Selected Exhibitions: Paris 1855, no. 2919; Paris 2003–4, no. 91; Leipzig 2015–16, no. 4 New York only
1864b, no. 6 (probably this work); Paris 1885, repr. p. 80
no. 214; Paris (Mémorial) 1963, no. 123; Tokyo– François Antoine de Boissy d’Anglas (1756–1826)
Nagoya 1989, no. 18; Rouen 1998, no. 149; Madrid– retained his composure throughout an extended Provenance: the artist’s estate sale, Hôtel Drouot,
Barcelona 2011–12, no. 72 speech delivered before a riotous crowd at the Paris, February 17–29, 1864, probably one of two
National Convention on May 20, 1795. This sketch drawings under no. 556, one to Emile Gavet and the
English forces led by Edward, Prince of Wales, was submitted for a competition to decorate the wall other to Francis Petit; Roger Marx, Paris; his son,
known as the Black Prince (1330–1376), won this behind the rostrum of the Chamber of Deputies in Claude Roger‑Marx, Paris; Henri Benezit; [Paris art
battle of 1356, part of the Hundred Years’ War, the Palais Bourbon, but was not selected. market, until ca. 2005]; private collection
against King Jean II of France (1319–1364).
In a Journal entry that corresponds to the date
CAT. 71 inscribed on this sheet, January 28, 1832, Delacroix
CAT. 69 Interior of a Dominican Convent in Madrid recorded a visit to the home of his interpreter,
The Battle of Nancy and the Death of Charles the Bold, (L’Amende Honorable) Abraham Ben-­Chimol (Delacroix 2009, vol. 1,
Duke of Burgundy, January 5, 1477 1831 p. 201). This may be one of Ben-­Chimol’s daughters,
1831 Oil on canvas one of whom appears in the slightly later watercolor
Oil on canvas 511/4 x 633/4 in. (130.2 x 161.9 cm) exhibited here as cat. 76.
935/16 in. x 11 ft. 83/16 in. (237 x 356 cm) Signed and dated (lower center): EUG. DELACROIX
Signed and dated (lower right): EUG. DELACROIX. 1831
/ F. 1831. Philadelphia Museum of Art: Purchased with the CAT. 73
Musée des Beaux‑Arts, Nancy (inv. MPR 1809) W. P. Wilstach Fund, 1894 (W 1894‑1‑2) Portrait of Schmareck, Tanner at Tangier
J 143 J 148 1832
repr. p. 58 New York only Watercolor with red and black chalk on paper
repr. p. 62 101/4 x 71/8 in. (26 x 18.1 cm)
Provenance: commissioned by King Charles X on Stamped (lower right): ED
August 28, 1828, for the municipal museum of Nancy; Provenance: Ferdinand Philippe, duc d’Orléans (by Private collection
delivered in 1833 1836–d. 1842); his widow (1842–53; her sale, Hôtel New York only
des Ventes, Paris, January 18, 1853, no. 18); van repr. p. 83
Selected Exhibitions: Paris (Salon) 1834, no. 494; Isacker (until 1857; his sale, rue Drouot, 5, Paris,
Paris 1855, no. 2920; Paris 1864b, no. 2; Paris 1885, April 24, 1857, no. 14, to Bouruet‑Aubertot); A. Provenance: the artist’s estate sale, Hôtel Drouot,
no. 157; Paris (Mémorial) 1963, no. 196; Zürich– Bouruet‑Aubertot (until at least 1864, possibly until Paris, February 17–29, 1864; Dr. Paul Brodin (in
Frankfurt 1987–88, no. 37; Tokyo–Nagoya 1989, d. 1869); [Brame, Paris]; Monsieur Edwards (until 1916); Etienne Moreau‑Nélaton, Paris; by descent to
no. 69; Rouen 1998, no. 151 1870; his sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, March 7, 1870, private collection; [Galerie de Bayser, Paris; until
no. 3, apparently bought in or sold to a family 2009; sold to private collection]; private collection
Charles the Bold was vanquished by forces led by member); [Durand‑Ruel, Paris, in 1872]; James (from 2009)
René II, duc de Lorraine. Duncan of Benmore (by 1885–89; his sale, Hôtel
Drouot, Paris, April 15, 1889, no. 10, to In a Journal entry written at Tangier on January 28,
Durand‑Ruel]; [Durand‑Ruel, Paris, from 1889]; 1832, Delacroix described “Schmareck in his shirt
CAT. 70 Philadelphia Museum of Art (from 1894) and leather apron”; the latter has been identified as a
Boissy d’Anglas at the Convention, sketch tanner employed by Abraham Ben-­Chimol
1831 Selected Exhibitions: Paris (Salon) 1834, no. 495; (Delacroix 2009, vol. 1, pp. 201, 203). For a summary
Oil on canvas Paris 1846b, no. 20; Paris 1860, supplement no. 343; sketch of the figure and a mention of “la tanerie,” see
311/8 x 4015/16 in. (79 x 104 cm) Paris 1864b, no. 132; Paris 1885, no. 74; Paris fig. 30.
(Mémorial) 1963, no. 199; Zürich–Frankfurt

Checklist 285
CAT. 74 CAT. 76 CAT. 78
Standing Moroccan Saada, the Wife of Abraham Ben‑Chimol, and Préciada, Moroccan Military Exercises
1832 One of Their Daughters 1832
Watercolor and pencil on paper 1832 Oil on canvas
105/8 x 71/16 in. (27 x 18 cm) Watercolor over graphite on wove paper 235/8 x 2813/16 in. (60 x 73.2 cm)
Dated and inscribed (lower left): 2 mars / promenade 83/4 x 63/8 in. (22.2 x 16.2 cm) Signed (lower center): Eug Delacroix / 1832.
avec M. Hay / diné chez lui; stamped (lower right): ED Signed (lower left): Eug Delacroix Musée Fabre, Montpellier Méditerranée Métropole
Private collection The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, (inv. 868.1.37)
New York only Bequest of Walter C. Baker, 1971 (1972.118.210) J 351
repr. p. 83 New York only repr. p. 84
repr. p. 81
Provenance: the artist’s estate sale, Hôtel Drouot, Provenance: presumably acquired from the artist
Paris, February 17–29, 1864, one of lots 543–547, Provenance: the artist, Paris (part of an album of by comte Charles de Mornay, Paris (until 1850; ?his
to Andrieu; Pierre Andrieu, Paris (from 1864); eighteen watercolors of Moroccan subjects, now in anonymous sale, Hôtel des Ventes, Paris, January
Edgar Degas, Paris (until d. 1917; his estate sale, various collections, given to Mornay in 1832 or soon 18–19, 1850, no. 119; Alfred Bruyas, Montpellier
Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, November 15–16, 1918, after); comte Charles de Mornay, Paris (until 1877; (1850/51–68; his gift to the city of Montpellier)
no. 152, to Guérin); Marcel Guérin, Paris (1918–at his sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, March 29, 1877, no. 10,
least 1936); Guérin family, by descent; [Brame, to Hecht); Albert Hecht, Paris (from 1877); Edouard Selected Exhibitions: Montpellier 1860, no. 77;
Paris]; private collection Aynard (until d. 1913; his estate sale, Galerie Georges Paris (Mémorial) 1963, no. 187; Paris 1994–95, no. 58;
Petit, Paris, December 1–4, 1913, no. 2); Walter C. Paris 2002–3, no. 209; Richmond–Williamstown–
Selected Exhibitions: Frankfurt 1987–88, no. H 18; Baker, New York (until d. 1971) Dallas–San Francisco 2004–5, no. 41; Madrid–
Zürich 1987–88, no. 34; Paris 1994–95, no. 3; New Barcelona 2011–12, no. 89 (Barcelona only)
York 1997–98, no. 390 Selected Exhibitions: Paris (Mémorial) 1963,
no. 162; New York 1991, no. 27
The same figure appears seated, without burnoose, in CAT. 79
cat. 75. The Monsieur Hay named in the inscription Delacroix is thought to have produced the water­ Arab Cavalry Practicing a Charge (Fantaisie Arabe)
was Edward William Auriol Drummond-­Hay (1785– colors for Mornay immediately upon returning from 1833
1845), British consul in Morocco. North Africa, while he was in quarantine in Toulon Oil on canvas
between July 5 and 20, 1832. 2313/16 x 295/16 in. (60.5 x 74.5 cm)
Signed and dated (lower right): Eug Delacroix / 1833.
CAT. 75 Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Main, Property of the
A Man of Tangier CAT. 77 Städelscher Museums-­Verein e.V. (inv. 1466)
1832 Street in Meknes J 353
Watercolor and pencil on paper 1832 New York only
101/2 x 75/16 in. (26.7 x 18.6 cm) Oil on canvas repr. p. 84
Inscribed in pencil (upper left): Bajador / Cedria; 181/4 x 251/4 in. (46.4 x 64.1 cm)
stamped (lower right): ED Signed and dated (lower right): Eug. Delacroix / 1832 Provenance: M. de Schomberg (until 1849; his sale,
The Morgan Library & Museum, New York, Collection Albright‑Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New Paris, April 28, 1849, no. 40); Monsieur van Isacker
Thaw Collection (2017.63) York, Elisabeth H. Gates and Charles W. Goodyear (until 1852; his sale, Hôtel des Ventes, Paris, May 15,
New York only Funds, 1948 (1948:4) 1852, no. 12); M. B. (until 1855; his sale, Hôtel des
repr. p. 82 J 352 Commissaires‑Priseurs, Paris, March 30, 1855, no. 19,
repr. p. 86 to Getting); Count Anatole Demidoff, prince of San
Provenance: the artist’s estate sale, Hôtel Drouot, Donato, Paris and Florence (1856–70; his sale,
Paris, February 17–29, 1864, one of lots 543–47, to Provenance: Robert Pelleve de la Motte‑Ango, Boulevard des Italiens, no. 26, Paris, February 21–22,
Robaut; Alfred Robaut, Paris (catalogues for his sales marquis de Flers (until 1907; sold on May 17 to 1870, no. 28, to Petit); [Petit]; Louis Lefebvre,
of December 2, 1907, and December 18, 1907, do not Bernheim); [Bernheim‑Jeune, Paris, 1907–9; sold Roubaix (by 1873–96; his posthumous sale, Galerie
include this drawing); Paul‑Arthur Chéramy, Paris on April 23, 1909, to Ebenrod]; Friedrich, Ritter von Georges Petit, Paris, May 4, 1896, no. 12, to Knoedler);
(until d. 1912; his estate sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, Wolff‑Ebenrod, Düsseldorf (1909–d. 1920); his [Knoedler, New York, 1896; sold in July to Kauffman];
April 14–16, 1913, part of no. 98, to Guérin); Marcel son‑in‑law, Friedrich August Feldhoff, Langenberg J. W. Kauffman, St. Louis (1896–1905; his posthu-
Guérin, Paris (1913–at least 1936); Guérin family, (until at least 1929); [Fine Arts Associates, New York, mous sale, Mendelssohn Hall, New York, February 3,
by descent; [Brame, Paris]; Eugene V. and Clare E. until 1948; sold on October 6 to Albright Art Gallery] 1905, no. 70, to Lehman); M. H. Lehman; [Knoedler,
Thaw, New York (until 2017; gift to Morgan) New York, until 1909, sold May 7 to Arnold &
Selected Exhibitions: Paris (Salon) 1834, no. 496; Tripp]; [Arnold & Tripp, Paris, 1909–10; sold
Selected Exhibitions: Paris 1994–95, no. 4 Paris (Mémorial) 1963, no. 200; Paris 1994–95, December 19, 1910, to Städelsches Kunstinstitut]
no. 59; Rouen 1998, no. 119; Madrid–Barcelona
2011–12, no. 90 Selected Exhibitions: London 1851, no. 67; Paris
1885, no. 126; Paris (Mémorial) 1963, no. 188;
Zürich–Frankfurt 1987–88, no. 43; Karlsruhe
2003–4, no. 112

286 DELACROIX
CAT. 80 Provenance: the artist’s estate sale, Hôtel Drouot, sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, May 25, 1887, no. 44, to
A Blacksmith Paris, February 17–29, 1864, no. unknown; [Georges Escribe for Boussod, Valadon, but probably bought
1833 Bernier, Paris]; Walter C. Baker, New York (until in and sold to Guillot]; Edmond Guillot, Paris (until
Aquatint on laid paper, with drypoint sketches in d. 1971) 1888; sold on December 31 to Boussod, Valadon);
the margins; second state of six [Boussod, Valadon & Cie, Paris, 1888; stock
Sheet 83/8 x 53/8 in. (21.3 x 13.6 cm), trimmed within For this study and at least one other (Louvre, no. 19615, sold on December 31, to Michel]; F.
the plate RF 9290), Delacroix employed a European model to Michel (from 1888); Philippe George, Aÿ (until 1891;
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, research the pose of the black maidservant in the his sale, Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, June 2, 1891,
Purchase, Rogers Fund and Jacob H. Schiff Bequest, Women of Algiers (cat. 83). no. 17); his widow, Madame Philippe George
1922 (22.60.13) (until 1898; sold on May 16 to Durand‑Ruel);
D-­S 19 [Durand‑Ruel, Paris, 1898–99; stock no. 4666; sold
New York only CAT. 83 on January 26, 1899, to Bernheim‑Jeune]; [Galerie
repr. p. 63 Women of Algiers in Their Apartment Bernheim‑Jeune, Paris, from 1899]; Monsieur
1834 Bessonneau, Angers (by 1916); his son‑in‑law(?),
Provenance: Alfred Beurdeley, Paris (d. 1919); Oil on canvas Monsieur Frappier (by 1923); Madame Frappier
[Maurice Gobin, Paris, until 1922; sold to MMA] 707/8 x 903/16 in. (180 x 229 cm) (by 1923–at least 1930); sale, former collection
Signed and dated (bottom right): EUG. DELACROIX. Bessonneau d’Angers, Galerie Charpentier, Paris,
Selected Exhibitions (this impression): Paris– / F.1834. June 15, 1954, no. 31, to Reid & Lefevre; [Reid &
New York 2002–3, no. 121 (New York only) Musée du Louvre, Paris, Département des Peintures Lefevre, London, 1954–at least 1956]; Lord and Lady
(3824) Walston, Thriplow, Cambridge (by 1959–89; on loan
The print repeats the composition of a painting J 356 to National Gallery, London, April 1988–May 1989;
believed to have been painted about 1825 (location repr. p. 78 sale, Christie’s, New York, November 14, 1989,
unknown, J L115). no. 31, to MMA)
Provenance: King Louis-Philippe, Paris (1834; bought
from the artist on June 26 and allocated to the Musée Selected Exhibitions: Paris (Salon) 1835, no. 556;
CAT. 81 du Luxembourg); Musée du Luxembourg, Paris Moulins 1836, suppl. no. 266; Lyon 1837, no. 72;
Collision of Arab Horsemen (1834–74; transferred in November 1874 to Louvre) Zürich–Frankfurt 1987–88, no. 7; New York 1991,
1833/34 no. 3; Rouen 1998, no. 52; Madrid–Barcelona
Oil on canvas Selected Exhibitions: Paris (Salon) 1834, no. 497; 2011–12, no. 76
3111/16 x 399/16 in. (80.5 x 100.5 cm) Paris 1855, no. 293I; Paris 1864b, no. 297; Paris
Signed (lower left): Eug. Delacroix (Mémorial) 1963, no. 394; Nantes–Paris–Piacenza For the subject, see the essay by Asher Miller in the
Private collection 1995–96, no. 74; Madrid–Barcelona 2011–12, no. 99 present volume.
J 355
New York only
repr. p. 85 CAT. 84 CAT. 85
The Natchez Christ on the Cross
Provenance: Salomon Hayum Goldschmidt, Paris 1823–24 and 1835 1835
(until d. 1888; his estate sale, Galerie Georges Petit, Oil on canvas Oil on canvas
Paris, May 17, 1888, no. 29, to his heirs); by descent 351/2 x 46 in. (90.2 x 116.8 cm) 715/8 x 531/8 in. (182 x 135 cm)
to Madame Bicart‑Sée; sale, Piasa, Paris, June 19, Signed (lower right): EugDelacroix Signed and dated (lower left): Eug. Delacroix. / 1835
1998, no. 28); private collection (from 1998) The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Musée des Beaux‑Arts, Vannes (inv. 2017.001.001)
Purchase, Gifts of George N. and Helen M. Richard J 421
Selected Exhibitions: rejected by the jury of the and Mr. and Mrs. Charles S. McVeigh and Bequest repr. p. 122
Paris Salon of 1834; Nantes 1839 (unidentified of Emma A. Sheafer, by exchange, 1989 (1989.328)
exhibition) J 101 Provenance: purchased from the artist by the French
New York only state in 1835 and given to the municipality of Vannes
repr. p. 229 (first installed in the church of Saint-Patern; dis-
CAT. 82 played in the office of the mayor, 1865; transferred in
Figure Study for “The Women of Algiers” Provenance: the artist, Paris (until 1837; possibly 1908 to museum; final transfer from the French state
1833/34 sold to baron Charles Rivet; lottery, Lyon, 1837 or to the city of Vannes concluded in 2017)
Graphite and watercolor on wove paper 1838, possibly won by Paturle); Monsieur Paturle
1213/16 x 83/16 in. (32.5 x 20.8 cm) (until 1872; his sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, February Selected Exhibitions: Paris (Salon) 1835, no. 554;
Stamped (lower left): ED 28, 1872, no. 7, to Febvre); [Alexis Joseph Febvre, Paris 1864b, no. 295; Paris 1885, no. 227; Paris
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Paris, from 1872]; Charles Sedelmeyer, Paris (until (Mémorial) 1963, no. 214; Tokyo–Nagoya 1989,
Bequest of Walter C. Baker, 1971 (1972.118.209) 1877; his sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, April 30, 1877, no. 26; Vannes 1993, no. 13; Rouen 1998, no. 153;
New York only no. 25); Paul Demidoff, prince of San Donato, Madrid–Barcelona 2011–12, no. 103
repr. p. 79 Florence and St. Petersburg (in 1878); Monsieur
Perreau (until 1881; sold on October 24, to Goupil);
[Goupil & Cie, Paris, 1881–87; stock no. 15678; their

Checklist 287
CAT. 86 Selected Exhibitions: Paris 1848, no. 26; Paris 1855, Selected Exhibitions: Paris 1885, no. 167; Paris
Hamlet and Horatio in the Graveyard no. 2927; Paris 1860, no. 168; Paris 1864b, no. 76; (Mémorial) 1963, no. 219
1835 Paris 1885, no. 92; Paris (Mémorial) 1963, no. 220;
Oil on canvas Zürich–Frankfurt 1987–88, no. 44; Bordeaux–Paris– The sitter was Delacroix’s aunt by marriage on his
39 x 3111/16 in. (99 x 80.5 cm) Athens 1996–97, no. 31; Paris 2002–3, no. 211; mother’s side. Her husband, Henri François Riesener
Signed and dated (lower left): Eug. Delacroix / 1835 Karlsruhe 2003–4, no. 113; Madrid–Barcelona 2011–12, (1767–1828), was a painter who specialized in
Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Main, Property of the no. 102; Minneapolis–London 2015–16, no. 17 portraiture.
Städelscher Museums-­Verein e.V. (inv. 2155)
J 258 This painting reprises a subject treated in cat. 27.
repr. p. 159 CAT. 90
Saint Sebastian Tended by the Holy Women
Provenance: Achille Ricourt (bought in summer CAT. 88 1836
1836); [Durand‑Ruel, in 1845]; ?M. A. Dugléré (until Léon Riesener (1808–1878) Oil on canvas
1853; his sale, Hôtel des Ventes Mobilières, Paris, 1835 845/8 in. x 9 ft. 21/4 in. (215 x 280 cm)
February 1, 1853, no. 42); Bouruet (in 1864); Oil on canvas Signed and dated (lower right): Eug. Delacroix 1836
Monsieur Edwards (until 1870; his sale, Hôtel 211/4 x 175/16 in. (54 x 44 cm) Church of Saint-­Michel, Nantua (Ain); Fonds
Drouot, Paris, March 7, 1870, no. 8, to Heine); Musée du Louvre, Paris, Département des Peintures National d’Art Contemporain (inv. FNAC PFH-­5176);
Michel Heine (1870–at least 1885); [Marlborough (RF 1960-­58) placed on deposit by the Centre National des Arts
Fine Art, London]; Geoffrey Gorer, Sussex, England J 225 Plastiques at the Collégiale de Nantua since 1837
(by 1959–1982); sale, Sotheby’s, London, June 15, New York only J 422
1982, no. 11, to Colnaghi; [Colnaghi, London, from repr. p. 6 repr. p. 112
1982]; Städelsches Kunstinstitut, Frankfurt (purchased
in 1987) Provenance: presumably painted for the sitter Provenance: sold by the artist in 1837 to the French
(d. 1878) or his mother (d. 1847); the sitter’s state; sent to Nantua at the request of Girot, deputy
Selected Exhibitions : rejected by the jury of the daughter, Madame Rosalie Pillaut (by 1885–d. 1913; from Ain; sold by the parish council of Ain to the
Paris Salon of 1836; Amiens 1836 (unidentified her bequest to Louvre; entered museum in 1960) dealers Brame and Durand-­Ruel, Paris, in 1869, but
exhibition); Paris 1885, no. 239; Zürich–Frankfurt sale annulled by the court of Lyon in 1873; painting
1987–88, no. 45; Copenhagen 2000, no. 24; Karlsruhe Selected Exhibitions: Paris 1885, no. 164; Karlsruhe returned to Church of Saint-­Michel
2003–4, no. 125; Winterthur 2008, no. 13; Marseilles– 2003–4, no. 71; Madrid–Barcelona 2011–12, no. 101
Rovereto–Toronto 2009–10, no. 92 (Marseilles and Selected Exhibitions: Paris (Salon) 1836, no. 499;
Rovereto only); Leipzig 2015–16, no. 61 The sitter, a painter, was Delacroix’s first cousin; his Paris 1864b, no. 296; Paris (Mémorial) 1963, no. 227;
mother is depicted in cat. 89. Zürich–Frankfurt 1987–88, no. 47; Tokyo–Nagoya
This scene is based on Shakespeare’s Hamlet, act 5, 1989, no. 50; Madrid–Barcelona 2011–12, no. 104
scene 1.
CAT. 89 The scene is drawn from the Golden Legend, also
Madame Henri François Riesener (Félicité Longrois, known as the Lives of the Saints, compiled in the late
CAT. 87 1786–1847) thirteenth century by Jacobus de Voragine, arch-
Combat of the Giaour and Hassan 1835 bishop of Genoa.
1835 Oil on canvas
Oil on canvas 291/4 x 233/4 in. (74.3 x 60.3 cm)
291/8 x 235/8 in. (74 x 60 cm) The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Gift of CAT. 91
Signed and dated (lower right): Eug. Delacroix. 1835. Mrs. Charles Wrightsman, 1994 (1994.430) Medea About to Kill Her Children, sketch
Petit Palais, Musée des Beaux‑Arts de la Ville de J 226 ca. 1836
Paris, Collection Dutuit (inv. PDUT1162) New York only Oil on canvas
J 257 repr. p. 6 181/8 x 1415/16 in. (46 x 38 cm)
repr. p. 35 Palais des Beaux‑Arts, Lille (inv. P. 933)
Provenance: ?the sitter, the artist’s maternal aunt, J 259
Provenance: presumably comte Charles de Mornay, Frépillon, near Montmorency, and Paris (until repr. p. 114
Paris (until 1850; ?his anonymous sale, Hôtel des d. 1847); her son, Léon Riesener, Paris (1847–
Ventes, Paris, January 18–19, 1850, no. 117, to Collot); d. 1878); his widow, Madame Léon Riesener (1878–at Provenance: the artist’s estate sale, Hôtel Drouot,
Collot (1850–52; his sale, Hôtel des Ventes, Paris, least 1885); their daughter, Louise Riesener, later Paris, February 17–29, 1864, possibly no. 139, to
May 29, 1852, no. 9, to Davin); Monsieur Davin Madame Claude Léouzon‑le‑Duc, ?Paris (by 1916–at Reynart for Musée des Beaux‑Arts, now Palais des
(until 1863; his sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, March 14, least 1936); Léon Salavin, Paris (by 1952–at least Beaux‑Arts, Lille
1863, no. 7, to Pereire); Emile Pereire (from 1863); 1969); [Galerie Schmit, Paris, until 1971, sold on
Gavet (in 1873); Laurent Richard (until 1878; his sale, January 11 to Rosenberg]; [Paul Rosenberg, New Selected Exhibitions: Paris (Mémorial) 1963,
Hôtel Drouot, Paris, May 23–25, 1878, no. 13, bought York, 1971; stock no. 6409; sold on February 22 to no. 246; Zürich–Frankfurt 1987–88, no. 48;
in); baron Gérard (in August 1878); comte de Wrightsman]; Mr. and Mrs. Charles Wrightsman, Karlsruhe 2003–4, no. 126; Paris 2001, no. 38;
Lastours (in 1930); François‑Charles‑Jean‑Marie, duc New York (1971–his d. 1986); Mrs. Charles Madrid–Barcelona 2011–12, no. 105; Paris 2013–14,
­d’Harcourt (until 1963, sold to Petit Palais) Wrightsman (1986–94) no. 16

288 DELACROIX
CAT. 92 Provenance: the artist (until July 31, 1838; sold to the Musée du Louvre, Paris, Département des Peintures,
Moroccan Chieftain Receiving Tribute French state for Musée des Beaux‑Arts, now Palais Bequest of Maurice Cottier, 1883 (with life interest),
1837 des Beaux‑Arts, Lille) entered the collection in 1903 (RF 1942)
Oil on canvas J 267
389/16 x 495/8 in. (98 x 126 cm) Selected Exhibitions: Paris (Salon) 1838, no. 456; repr. p. 161
Signed and dated (lower right): Eug. Delacroix / 1837. exhibited at the Musée du Luxembourg, Paris, for
Musée d’Arts de Nantes, Nantes Métropole one year following its purchase by the state prior to Provenance: Ferdinand Philippe, duc d’Orléans (by
(inv. 892) being sent to Lille; Paris 1855, no. 2913; Paris 1885, 1836–d. 1842); his widow (1842–53; her sale, Hôtel
J 359 no. 130; Paris (Mémorial) 1963, no. 245; Tokyo– des Ventes, Paris, January 18, 1853, no. 19, to Cottier);
repr. p. 89 Nagoya 1989, no. 41; Nantes–Paris–Piacenza 1995– Maurice Cottier (1853–d. 1881; bequeathed to Louvre
96, no. 68; Paris 2001, no. 39; Madrid–Barcelona with life interest to his widow; entered museum
Provenance: the artist, Paris (until 1839; sold in 2011–12, no. 114 in 1903)
June to the Musée des Beaux-­Arts, Nantes)
According to the Greek mythological tale, Medea Selected Exhibitions: Paris (Salon) 1839, no. 525;
Selected Exhibitions: Paris (Salon) 1838, no. 458; became enraged by Jason’s infidelity (with Glauce, Bordeaux 1852, no. 133; Paris 1855, no. 2936; Paris
Nantes 1839 (unidentified exhibition); Paris 1864b, daughter of the king of Corinth), taking revenge by 1860, no. 171; Paris 1885, no. 49; Paris (Mémorial)
no. 3; Paris (Mémorial) 1963, no. 257; Zürich– killing their children. 1963, no. 281; Nantes–Paris–Piacenza 1995–96,
Frankfurt 1987–88, no. 49; Paris 1994–95, no. 69; no. 69; Madrid–Barcelona 2011–12, no. 117
Rouen 1998, no. 120; Paris 2002–3, no. 212;
Karlsruhe 2003–4, no. 141; Madrid–Barcelona CAT. 95 This painting reprises the subject of cat. 86.
2011–12, no. 111 (Madrid only); Chantilly 2012–13, Cleopatra and the Peasant
no. 58; Paris 2014–15, no. 41 1838
Oil on canvas CAT. 97
381/2 x 50 in. (97.8 x 127 cm) Startled Arabian Horse in a Landscape
CAT. 93 Signed and dated (upper right): Eug. Delacroix / 1838. ca. 1835–40
Self-Portrait in a Green Vest Collection of the Ackland Art Museum, University of Watercolor and gouache with gum arabic on paper
ca. 1837 North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Ackland Fund 67/8 x 95/8 in. (17.5 x 24.5 cm)
Oil on canvas (59.15.1) Signed (lower left): Eug Delacroix
259/16 x 217/16 in. (65 x 54.5 cm) J 262 Private collection
Musée du Louvre, Paris, Département des Peintures, repr. p. 118 New York only
Gift of Madame Zélie Duriez de Verninac through repr. p. 88
Pierre Andrieu, 1872 (RF 25) Provenance: presumably comte Charles de Mornay,
J 230 Paris (probably from 1847–50; ?his anonymous sale, Provenance: [?Adolphe Beugniet, Paris]; [Galerie
repr. p. 98 Hôtel des Ventes, Paris, January 18–19, 1850, no. 116, Susse, Paris, until 1856; their anonymous sale, Hôtel
possibly to Delacroix); ?Eugène Delacroix, Paris des Commissaires‑Priseurs, Paris, January 10, 1856,
Provenance: the artist, Paris (until d. 1863; (from 1850); private collection, Toulouse (in 1865); no. 35, to Moreau]; Adolphe Moreau père, Paris
bequeathed to Le Guillou with the verbal request Madame Carayon‑Talpayrac (in 1874); her family (from 1856); private collection, Lyon; [Paris art
that she give it to the Louvre if the Orléans family (until at least 1893); Denys Cochin (by 1916–19; his market, until ca. 1987; sold to private collection]
returned to power; see Robaut 1885, p. 82, under sale, Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, March 26, 1919,
no. 295); his housekeeper, Jenny Le Guillou (1863– no. 12); Dr. Emil Hahnloser, Zürich (in 1921); his Selected Exhibitions: Paris 2002–3, no. 208
d. 1869; bequeathed to Verninac); the artist’s cousin family (until ca. 1957); [Schaeffer Galleries, New
Madame Zélie Duriez de Verninac (until 1872; York, 1957/58–59; sold in October 1959 to Ackland]
her gift to the Louvre, with Pierre Andrieu as CAT. 98
intermediary) Selected Exhibitions: Paris (Salon) 1839, no. 524; The Shipwreck of Don Juan
Paris 1846b, no. 21; Paris (Mémorial) 1963, no. 280; 1840
Selected Exhibitions: Paris (Mémorial) 1963, Madrid–Barcelona 2011–12, no. 115; Minneapolis– Oil on canvas
no. 243; Madrid–Barcelona 2011–12, no. 110; London 2015–16, no. 50 531/8 x 773/16 in. (135 x 196 cm)
Minneapolis–London 2015–16, no. 1 (London only) Signed and dated (lower left): Eug. Delacroix. / 1840.
The subject is drawn from Shakespeare’s Antony and Musée du Louvre, Département des Peintures, Paris,
Cleopatra, act 5, scene 2. Gift of Adolphe Moreau, 1883 (RF 359)
CAT. 94 J 276
Medea About to Kill Her Children (Medée furieuse) repr. p. 118
1838 CAT. 96
Oil on canvas Hamlet and Horatio in the Graveyard Provenance: [Cheradane, ca. 1845]; Adolphe
8 ft. 63/8 in. x 6415/16 in. (260 x 165 cm) 1839 Moreau père, Paris (bought no later than January
Signed and dated (lower left): EUG DELACROIX / Oil on canvas 1847); his widow and their son, Adolphe Moreau fils
1838 321/16 x 253/4 in. (81.5 x 65.4 cm) (until 1883; their gift to Louvre)
Palais des Beaux‑Arts, Lille (inv. P. 542) Signed and dated (lower center): Eug. Delacroix /
J 261 1839.
repr. p. 115

Checklist 289
Selected Exhibitions: Paris (Salon) 1841, no. 510; 121/2 x 17 in. (31.8 x 43.2 cm) Clemenceau‑Meurice (in 1927); [Vitale Bloch,
Paris 1855, no. 2937; Paris 1860, no. 169; Paris Signed (at bottom, right of center): Eug. Delacroix. ca. 1960–61; sold in 1961 to Boijmans]
(Mémorial) 1963, no. 303; Paris 2004, no. 46; Private collection
Madrid–Barcelona 2011–12, no. 120 J 562 Selected Exhibitions: Paris 1845; Paris 1885, no. 146;
repr. p. 124 Zürich–Frankfurt 1987–88, no. 60; Paris–Philadelphia
The subject is drawn from Lord Byron’s poem 1998–99, no. 119; Copenhagen 2000, no. 18
Don Juan, initially published in parts between 1819 Provenance: Gustave-­Joseph-­Marie Lassalle Bordes,
and 1824. Paris (received from the artist by 1853); de La Rosière
(by 1864); [Durand-Ruel, August 1872]; private CAT. 103
collection, Brussels (until 2016); private collection Christ on the Cross
CAT. 99 (from 2016) 1846
Christ on the Lake of Genesareth Oil on canvas
ca. 1841 Selected Exhibitions: Paris 1864b, no. 116; Madrid– 311/2 x 251/4 in. (80 x 64.1 cm)
Oil on canvas Barcelona 2011–12, no. 109 Signed and dated (lower right): Eug. Delacroix 1846
173/4 x 215/8 in. (45.1 x 54.9 cm) The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, Maryland
Signed (lower right, on boat): Eug. Delacroix. Elements of this sketch for the wall painting in the (37.62)
Portland Art Museum, Oregon, Gift of Mrs. William church of Saint‑Denys-­du-­Saint‑Sacrement, Paris J 433
Mead Ladd and her children: William Sargent Ladd, (1844), most notably the angels drawing back the repr. p. 127
Charles Thornton Ladd, and Henry Andrews Ladd in curtains, were subsequently abandoned; see cat. 101.
memory of William Mead Ladd (31.4) Provenance: Paul Barroillhet (bought from the artist
J 452 by April 1847); ?Van Cuyck; J. P. Bonnet (by 1853–at
New York only CAT. 101 least 1855; his sale, Hôtel des Ventes Mobilières,
repr. p. 190 Pietà, second sketch Paris, February 19, 1853, no. 10, to de Breville,
by 1843 possibly bought in for Bonnet); Solar; Osiris; ?Gavet;
Provenance: ?Mlle Micheline Dziekańska; Van Praet, Oil on canvas Fanien (by 1873/74; sold to Petit); [Georges Petit,
Brussels (by 1873–d. 1888); his nephew, Paul Devaux 115/8 x 171/8 in. (29.5 x 43.5 cm) Paris]; Monsieur Defoer (by 1883–86; his sale,
(d. ca. 1892); Henri Garnier (1893–94; bought with Musée du Louvre, Paris, Département des Peintures, Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, May 22, 1886, no. 10,
Van Praet collection en bloc; his sale, Galerie Bequest of Armand Dorville, 1942 (RF 1943-­6) to Montaignac for Walters); William T. Walters,
Georges Petit, Paris, December 3–4, 1894, no. 43, J 563 Baltimore (1886–d. 1894); his son, Henry Walters
to Durand‑Ruel in shares with Boussod‑Valadon); repr. p. 125 (1894–d. 1931; his bequest to Walters Art Museum)
[Durand‑Ruel, Paris, and Boussod, Valadon, Paris,
1894–95, until the former sold share to latter on Provenance: the artist’s estate sale, Hôtel Drouot, Selected Exhibitions: Paris (Salon) 1847, no. 459;
May 30]; [Boussod‑Valadon, 1895; sold on July 1 to Paris, February 17–29, 1864, no. 7, to Lambert; Paris 1855, no. 2909; Paris 1885, no. 52; Paris
Cottier]; [Cottier, New York, from 1895]; William Lambert (from 1864); Georges Aubry (until 1933; his (Mémorial) 1963, no. 360; Columbia–Rochester–
Ladd, Portland, Oregon (by 1913–d. 1931; on loan to sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, March 11, 1933, no. 82, to Santa Barbara 1989–90, no. 169; New York 1991,
Portland Art Museum, 1913–30; in care of Dr. Louis Schoeller); Armand Dorville (until d. 1941; his bequest no. 6; Paris–Philadelphia 1998–99, no. 120; Madrid–
Ladd, New York, 1930–31); his widow, Mrs. William to Louvre, 1942; delivered to Louvre in June 1943) Barcelona 2011–12, no. 132
Ladd (1931; her gift in February 1931 to Portland
Art Museum) selected exhibitions: Madrid–Barcelona 2011–12,
no. 108 CAT. 104
Selected Exhibitions: possibly exhibited in Paris The Death of Sardanapalus
in 1841; Paris (Mémorial) 1963, no. 448; Zürich– The composition of this sketch was adopted, in 1845–46
Frankfurt 1987–88, no. 93; Paris–Philadelphia reverse, for the painting in Saint‑Denys-­du-­ Oil on canvas
1998–99, no. 114 Saint‑Sacrement. 29 x 327/16 in. (73.7 x 82.4 cm)
Philadelphia Museum of Art: The Henry P. McIlhenny
When awakened by his terrified disciples during a Collection in memory of Frances P. McIlhenny, 1986
storm on the Lake of Genesareth, also known as the CAT. 102 (1986‑26‑17)
Sea of Galilee and by other names, Christ scolded Christ on the Cross, sketch J 286
them for their lack of trust in Providence. The story 1845 repr. p. 52
is recounted in three of the Gospels: Matthew Oil on wood
8:23–27, Luke 8:22–25, and Mark 4:36–41. There are 149/16 x 913/16 in. (37 x 25 cm) Provenance: the artist, Paris (until d. 1863;
two other treatments of the subject in the present Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam bequeathed to his executor, Legrand); Eugène‑
catalogue (cats. 129 and 131). (inv. 2625 [OK]) François‑Charles Legrand, Paris; Prosper Crabbe,
J 432 Brussels (in 1873); A. Bellino (by 1885–92; his sale,
repr. p. 126 Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, May 20, 1892, no. 11,
CAT. 100 bought in); [Wildenstein, New York, in 1930]; [Paul
Pietà, first sketch Provenance: Alexandre Dumas fils (in 1845); Paul Rosenberg, Paris and New York, by April 1934–35;
by 1843 Meurice (by 1885–d. 1905; his estate sale, Hôtel sold to McIlhenny]; Henry P. McIlhenny,
Oil on paper, laid down on canvas, with strip of Drouot, Paris, May 25, 1906, no. 80, probably Philadelphia (1935–d. 1986; his bequest to
wood added at bottom edge to a member of his family); Madame Albert Philadelphia Museum of Art)

290 DELACROIX
Selected Exhibitions: Paris 1864b, no. 144; Paris CAT. 106 CAT. 108
1885, no. 8; New York 1991, no. 4; London– The Lamentation (Christ at the Tomb) Arch of Morning Glories, study for “Basket of Flowers”
Minneapolis–New York 2003–4, no. 78; 1847–48 1848/49
Minneapolis–London 2015–16, no. 18 Oil on canvas Pastel on blue paper
64 x 52 in. (162.6 x 132.1 cm) 121/16 x 18 in. (30.6 x 45.7 cm)
The artist produced this reduced version of the Signed and dated (lower left): Eug. Delacroix. / 1848 The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York,
painting he had exhibited at the Salon of 1827–28 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Gift by contribution in Bequest of Miss Adelaide Milton de Groot (1876–
(fig. 20) at the time he sold the larger picture to the memory of Martin Brimmer (96.21) 1967), 1967 (67.187.4)
collector Daniel Wilson. J 434 Johnson 1995, no. 10
repr. p. 128 New York only
repr. p. 142
CAT. 105 Provenance: comte Théodore de Geloës, probably
The Abduction of Rebecca Paris, but possibly Château d’Osen, near Roermund, Provenance: the artist’s estate sale, Hôtel Drouot,
1846 the Netherlands (1847–70; bought from the artist on Paris, February 17–29, 1864, no. 616, to Casavy; Casavy
Oil on canvas April 28, 1847, while the painting was still incom- (from 1864); Charles Paravey (his sale, Hôtel Drouot,
391/2 x 321/4 in. (100.3 x 81.9 cm) plete; sold to Faure); Jean‑Baptiste Faure, Paris Paris, April 13, 1878, not listed in catalogue); Victor
Signed and dated (lower right): Eug. Delacroix / 1846 (1870–73; his sale, Boulevard des Italiens, no. 26, Chocquet, Paris (until d. 1891); his widow, Augustine
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Paris, June 7, 1873, no. 7, to Durand‑Ruel); [Hector Marie Caroline Chocquet, née Buisson, Paris (1891–
Catharine Lorillard Wolfe Collection, Wolfe Fund, Brame, Paris, in 1878]; baron Etienne Martin de d. 1899; her sale, Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, July 1,
1903 (03.30) Beurnonville (until 1880; his sale, Hôtel Drouot, 3–4, 1899, no. 177; [Wildenstein, New York, in 1952];
J 284 Paris, April 29, 1880, no. 11, possibly to Brame for Adelaide Milton de Groot, New York (until d. 1967)
repr. p. 174 Tavernier); Tavernier (1880–94; his sale, Galerie
Georges Petit, Paris, June 11, 1894, no. 5, to Selected Exhibitions: New York 1991, no. 17;
Provenance: Collot, Paris (by 1846–52; his sale, Durand‑Ruel); [Durand‑Ruel, Paris and New York, Paris–Philadelphia 1998–99, no. 28 (Paris only); Paris
Hôtel des Ventes Mobilières, Paris, May 28, 1852, 1894–96; sold Museum of Fine Arts, Boston] 2012–13, unnumbered catalogue (fig. 85)
no. 11); M. T. . . , Brussels (until 1856; his sale, Hôtel
des Commissaires-Priseurs, Paris, February 9, 1856, Selected Exhibitions: Paris (Salon) 1848, no. 1157; This pastel is a study for cat. 109.
no. 12, to Bouruet‑Aubertot); [Jean‑Hector Paris 1855, no. 2910; Paris (Mémorial) 1963, no. 383;
Bouruet‑Aubertot, Paris, 1856–68; sold June 1868 to Paris–Philadelphia 1998–99, no. 125; Minneapolis–
Durand‑Ruel and Brame]; [Durand‑Ruel and Hector London 2015–16, no. 37 CAT. 109
Brame, Paris, 1868, in equal shares; Durand‑Ruel Basket of Flowers
archives, stock 1868–73, no. 10953; sold in June 1868, 1848–49
to Gavet]; Emile Gavet, Paris (from 1868); Edwards, CAT. 107 Oil on canvas
Paris (until 1870; his sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, March Arab Players 421/4 x 56 in. (107.3 x 142.2 cm)
7, 1870, no. 7, to Sabatier); Raymond Sabatier, Paris 1848 The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York,
(1870–83; sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, May 30, 1883, Oil on canvas Bequest of Miss Adelaide Milton de Groot (1876–
no. 12); Salomon Hayum Goldschmidt, Paris (1883– 3713/16 x 513/16 in. (96 x 130 cm) 1967), 1967 (67.187.60)
88; his estate sale, Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, May Signed and dated (lower left): Eug. Delacroix / 1848. J 502
17, 1888, no. 34, to Knoedler for Lyall); David C. Musée des Beaux-­Arts de Tours (inv. 1848‑1‑1) repr. p. 142
Lyall, Brooklyn (1888–d. 1892; his estate sale, J 380
American Art Association, New York, February 10, repr. p. 88 Provenance: the artist, Paris (until d. 1863; his estate
1903, no. 96, to Durand‑Ruel); [Durand‑Ruel, New sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, February 17–18, 1864,
York, 1903; sold half‑share on February 26 to Provenance: sold by the artist in 1848 to the French no. 88, to Sourigues); Monsieur Sourigues (1864–81;
Knoedler]; [Durand‑Ruel and Knoedler, New York, state and deposited at the Musée des Beaux‑Arts, his sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, February 28, 1881,
1903; stock no. 10184 sold on March 2 to MMA] Tours; transferred by the state to the city of Tours no. 14, to Durand‑Ruel); [Durand‑Ruel, Paris, 1881;
in 2010 stock no. 882; sold on March 5 to Feder]; Jules
Selected Exhibitions: Paris (Salon) 1846, no. 502; Feder, Paris (from 1881); Vice‑Admiral Auguste
Paris 1846a, suppl. no. 164; Paris 1864b, no. 129 Selected Exhibitions: Paris 1848, no. 1160; Paris Bosse, Paris (in 1885); Erwin Davis, New York (by
(possibly this work); New York 1991, no. 5 1864b, no. 14; Paris 1885, no. 220; Paris (Mémorial) 1888–at least 1911; on deposit with Durand‑Ruel, New
1963, no. 389; Zürich–Frankfurt 1987–88, no. 68; York, December 27, 1897–December 30, 1911;
The subject is drawn from Sir Walter Scott’s histori- Nantes–Paris–Piacenza 1995–96, no. 72; Copenhagen deposit no. 5645); Albert Gallatin, New York (by
cal novel Ivanhoe, published in English in 1820 and 2000, no. 8; Karlsruhe 2003–4, no. 211; Madrid– 1936–at least 1938); [Wildenstein, New York, by
translated into French the following year. Barcelona 2011–12, no. 136 1943–56; stock no. 16861; sold to de Groot];
Adelaide Milton de Groot, New York (1956–d. 1967)

Selected Exhibitions: Paris (Salon) 1849, no. 504;

Bordeaux 1854, probably no. 157; Paris 1855, part of
no. 2941; Paris 1862; Paris 1864b, no. 308 (in supple-
ment to 3rd ed. of catalogue); Paris–Philadelphia
1998–99, no. 29; Karlsruhe 2003–4, no. 154

Checklist 291
CAT. 110 Provenance: the artist (probably until March 1849; Selected Exhibitions: Montpellier 1860, no. 75;
Basket of Flowers and Fruit probably sold to Lefebvre); [Lefebvre]; Barre, Paris 1864b, no. 299; Nantes–Paris–Piacenza 1995–
1849 Chaussée d’Antin, Paris (until 1890; sold on February 96, no. 75; Richmond–Williamstown–Dallas–San
Oil on canvas 6 to Boussod, Valadon); [Boussod, Valadon et Cie, Francisco 2004–5, no. 45; Winterthur 2008, no. 17;
425/8 x 563/8 in. (108.3 x 143.2 cm) Paris, 1890–91; sold on July 4 to Chase); [J. E. Madrid–Barcelona 2011–12, no. 142
Philadelphia Museum of Art: John G. Johnson Chase, Boston, from 1891]; ?Mrs. Samuel D. Warren,
Collection, 1917 (Cat. 974) Boston (until d.; her estate sale, American Art
J 501 Association, New York, January 8–9, 1903, no. 30, to CAT. 115
repr. p. 143 Healy); A. A. Healy (from 1903); private collection, View in the Forest of Sénart
Venice (until ca. 1962); private collection, Rio de ca. 1849–50
Provenance: the artist, Paris (until d. 1863; his estate Janeiro (in 1977); sale, Sotheby’s, London, June 23, Oil on canvas
sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, February 17–29, 1864, 1981, no. 10, to Whitney; Wheelock Whitney, New 1211/16 x 181/8 in. (32.2 x 46 cm)
no. 90, to Piron); Achille Piron (1864–d. 1865; his York (1981–2014); National Gallery of Canada, Private collection, courtesy of Art Cuéllar-­Nathan
estate sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, April 21, 1865, no. 2); Ottawa (from 2014) J 482a
[Durand-­Ruel, Paris, in 1873]; Fanien (by 1873–at repr. p. 196
least 1878); [Georges Petit, Paris, in 1884]; John G. Selected Exhibitions: Zürich–Frankfurt 1987–88,
Johnson, Philadelphia (possibly by 1888, certainly no. 69; Madrid–Barcelona 2011–12, no. 137 Provenance: the artist’s estate sale, Hôtel Drouot,
by 1892–d. 1917; his bequest to Philadelphia Museum Paris, February 17–29, 1864, probably part of no. 219,
of Art) to Aubry; Monsieur Aubry, Paris (from 1864);
CAT. 113 [Vuillier, Paris, until 1898; sold to Launay]; Louis
Selected Exhibitions: Paris (Salon) 1849, no. 505; Landscape at Champrosay de Launay (from 1898); de Launay family, by descent
Bordeaux 1854, no. 158; Paris 1855, no. 2942; Paris possibly 1849 (until at least 1986); private collection (from at
1862; Paris 1885, no. 234; Paris–Philadelphia 1998–99, Oil on paper on cardboard least 1998)
no. 30; Copenhagen 2000, no. 42; Karlsruhe 151/16 x 183/16 in. (38.3 x 46.2 cm)
2003–4, no. 153; Minneapolis–London 2015–16, Kunsthalle Bremen—Der Kunstverein in Bremen Selected Exhibitions: Paris–Philadelphia 1998–99,
no. 64 (inv. 121‑1927/8) no. 38
J 480
repr. p. 183
CAT. 111 CAT. 116
Basket of Flowers Provenance: the artist’s estate sale, Hôtel Drouot, Forest View with an Oak Tree
ca. 1848–50 Paris, February 17–29, 1864, part of no. 219, to Belly; ca. 1849–50
Oil on canvas Léon Belly (1864–d. 1877; his estate sale, Hôtel Watercolor with yellow opaque watercolor over
247/16 x 341/4 in. (62 x 87 cm) Drouot, Paris, February 11–12, 1878, no. 209, to black chalk on paper
Signed (lower right, on table): Eug. Delacroix Dollfus; Jean Dollfus (1878–d. 1911; his estate sale, 121/4 x 87/8 in. (31.1 x 22.5 cm)
Palais des Beaux‑Arts, Lille (inv. P. 533) Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, March 2, 1912, no. 31, to Stamped (lower left): ED
J 504 Hessel); Jos Hessel, Paris (from 1912); [Moderne The Morgan Library & Museum, New York,
repr. p. 139 Galerie Thannhauser, Munich, in 1916]; Curt Glaser, Thaw Collection (2017.67)
Berlin (in 1921); [Kunstsalon Paul Cassirer, Berlin, New York only
Provenance: Monsieur Panis; Delaroche (in until 1927; sold on October 6 to Kunsthalle Bremen] repr. p. 182
December 1893); Musée des Beaux‑Arts, now Palais
des Beaux‑Arts, Lille (purchased in July 1895) Selected Exhibitions: Paris 1885, no. 89; Paris Provenance: the artist’s estate sale, Hôtel Drouot,
(Mémorial) 1963, no. 402; Winterthur 2008, no. 19 Paris, February 17–29, 1864, unidentified no.; Alfred
Selected Exhibitions: Copenhagen 2000, no. 43; Beurdeley (until d. 1919; his estate sale, Galerie
Karlsruhe 2003–4, no. 152; Paris 2012–13, unnum- Georges Petit, Paris, December 1–2, 1920, no. 121);
bered catalogue (fig. 27) CAT. 114 Boutet Roulier; Eugene V. and Clare E. Thaw, New
Michelangelo in His Studio York (until 2017; their gift to Morgan)
1849–50
CAT. 112 Oil on canvas Selected Exhibitions: New York 1991, no. 68;
Christ at the Column 153/4 x 125/8 in. (40 x 32 cm) Paris–Philadelphia 1998–99, no. 39 (Paris only)
probably 1849 Signed (lower left): Eug. Delacroix.
Oil on canvas Musée Fabre, Montpellier Méditerranée Métropole Features of this oak were incorporated into cats. 119,
14 x 103/4 in. (35.6 x 27.3 cm) (inv. 868.1.40) 120, and subsequently, fig. 69.
Signed (lower right): Eug. Delacroix. J 305
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, Purchased 2014 New York only
(inv. 46341) repr. p. 119
J 439
repr. p. 134 Provenance: [Thomas, from 1853; bought from the
artist in March]; Alfred Bruyas, Montpellier (by
1854–68; his gift to the city of Montpellier)

292 DELACROIX
CAT. 117 CAT. 119 CAT. 121
The Triumph of Genius over Envy Jacob Wrestling with the Angel Sunset
ca. 1849–51 1850 ca. 1850
Pen and brown ink over graphite on laid paper, Black chalk on tracing paper Pastel on blue laid paper, mounted on paper board
mounted on cardboard 217/8 x 149/16 in. (55.6 x 37 cm) Overall: 81/16 x 103/16 in. (20.4 x 25.9 cm)
103/8 x 1313/16 in. (26.4 x 35.1 cm) Stamped (lower left): ED Stamped (verso): ED
Inscribed in graphite (lower center): Serpent; (lower The Morgan Library & Museum, New York, gift of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Gift
right): plus grand le monstre; (upper left): [illegible]; Mrs. Landon K. Thorne, 1964 (1964.2) from the Karen B. Cohen Collection of Eugène
stamped (lower right): ED New York only Delacroix, in honor of Philippe de Montebello, 2014
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Rogers repr. p. 170 (2014.732.4)
Fund, 1961 (61.160.1) Johnson 1995, no. 44
New York only Provenance: the artist’s estate sale, Hôtel Drouot, New York only
repr. p. 153 Paris, February 17–29, 1864, part of lot 297; Alfred repr. p. 184
Robaut, Paris; Paul‑Arthur Chéramy, Paris (until
Provenance: the artist’s estate sale, Hôtel Drouot, 1908; his sale, Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, May 5–7, Provenance: the artist’s estate sale, Hôtel Drouot,
Paris, February 17–29, 1864, part of no. 378, possibly 1908, no. 351); Alfred Beurdeley, Paris (until d. 1919; Paris, February 17–29, 1864, one of seventeen pastel
to Sensier; Alfred Sensier, Paris (1864–d. 1877; his estate sale, Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, studies of skies included in nos. 608–13; Alfred
reportedly his estate sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, November 30–December 2, 1920, no. 118); Edouard Robaut, Paris; baron Joseph Vitta, Paris (by 1930);
December 12, 14–16, 1877, to Burty); Philippe Burty, Napoléon César Edmond Mortier, duc de Trévise, [Hazlitt, Gooden & Fox, London, until 1988];
Paris (until d. 1890; his estate sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris (until 1938; his sale, Galerie Charpentier, Paris, Karen B. Cohen, New York (1988–2014)
Paris, March 2–3, 1891, no. 71); [Otto Wertheimer, May 19, 1938, no. 3); Mrs. Landon K. Thorne (until
Paris, until 1937; sold on December 18 to 1964; her gift to Morgan) Selected Exhibitions: New York 1991, no. 16;
Feilchenfeldt]; Walter and Marianne Feilchenfeldt, Paris–Philadelphia 1998–99, no. 62 (Philadelphia
Amsterdam and Zürich (1937–his d. 1953); Marianne Selected Exhibitions: Frankfurt 1987–88, no. K 9; only); New York 2000–2001, no. 45; Paris 2009–10,
Feilchenfeldt, Zürich (1953–61; sold to MMA) New York 1991, no. 46 no. 104; New York 2018, no. 101

Selected Exhibitions: Paris 1885, not in catalogue;

Paris (Mémorial) 1963, no. 294; New York 1991, CAT. 120 CAT. 122
no. 45; Paris–Philadelphia 1998–99, no. 63 Jacob Wrestling with the Angel Apollo Slays the Python, sketch
(Paris only) 1850 ca. 1850
Oil over pen and ink on tracing paper; mounted on Oil on paper on canvas
canvas and backed with linen 261/16 x 233/4 in. (66.2 x 60.3 cm)
CAT. 118 223/8 x 16 in. (56.8 x 40.6 cm) Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (purchased with
Jacob Struggling with the Angel The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Gift support from the BankGiro Loterij)
1850 from the Karen B. Cohen Collection of Eugène (inv. s0526S2012)
Graphite over traces of red chalk on two sheets of Delacroix, in honor of Philippe de Montebello, 2016 J 575
beige laid paper, joined horizontally at the center (2016.759) New York only
221/4 x 151/8 in. (56.5 x 38.4 cm) J 595 repr. p. 144
Inscribed (lower left): vert; stamped (lower right): New York only
ED repr. p. 171 Provenance: the artist’s estate sale, Hôtel Drouot,
Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Cambridge, Paris, February 17–29, 1864, no. 30, to Dauzats;
Mass., gift of Philip Hofer (1934.3) Provenance: the artist (possibly given to Andrieu); Adrien Dauzats (from 1864); count of Villagonzalo,
New York only Pierre Andrieu, Paris (until at least 1864); member of Paris (from ca. 1870); by descent to private collec-
repr. p. 170 the Orléans family, possibly Philippe, comte de Paris, tion, Madrid (until 2012; sale, Christie’s, London,
Château d’Eu, Normandy (by 1891–d. 1894); his June 12, 2012, no. 24); Van Gogh Museum,
Provenance: the artist’s estate sale, Hôtel Drouot, daughter princesse Hélène, duchess of Aosta Amsterdam (from 2012)
Paris, February 17–29, 1864, part of no. 297; Alfred (1895–d. 1951); her daughter-­in-­law Irene, duchess of
Robaut, Paris; Denys Darcy; Georges Aubry, Paris; Aosta, Florence (from 1951–at least 1959, when Selected Exhibitions: Madrid–Barcelona 2011–12,
Maurice Gobin, Paris (sold to Hofer); Philip Hofer, consigned to Michael Harvard, London); [Claude no. 147; Minneapolis–London 2015–16, no. 11
Cambridge, Mass. (until 1934) Aubry, Paris, by 1963]; [Eugene V. Thaw, New York,
by 1967]; [Salander-­O’Reilly, New York, until 1985]; The subject of this sketch and cat. 123 is a Greek myth
Selected Exhibitions: Paris (Mémorial) 1963, Karen B. Cohen, New York (1985–2016) recounted by the Roman poet Ovid in Metamorphoses
no. 517; Frankfurt 1987–88, no. K 8; New York 1991, (1.438–72). Both works are related to the ceiling
no. 47; Karlsruhe 2003–4, no. 168 Selected Exhibitions: Paris 1864b, no. 87; New painting in the Gallery of Apollo in the Louvre
York 1991, no. 8; New York 2000–2001, no. 44; Paris (fig. 53).
This drawing and cats. 119 and 120 are studies for 2009–10, no. 15; Paris 2018, no. 39
the painting in the church of Saint-­Sulpice, Paris
(fig. 69). Their subject is drawn from Genesis
32:22–32.

Checklist 293
CAT. 123 Provenance: the artist (until 1851; sold in December, The scene is drawn from the epic poem Orlando furioso
Apollo Victorious over the Serpent Python, sketch through the Société des Amis des Arts, Bordeaux, (1516), by Ludovico Ariosto (1474–1533).
ca. 1850 probably to Damblat); Monsieur F. E. Damblat (in
Oil on canvas 1864); Madame Ingres or Monsieurs T. and X. (until
541/8 x 403/16 in. (137.5 x 102 cm) 1894; posthumous sale of Madame Ingres and modern CAT. 128
Musées Royaux des Beaux‑Arts de Belgique, Brussels pictures belonging to MM. T. and X., Hôtel Drouot, The Sea at Dieppe
(inv. 1727) Paris, April 10, 1894, no. 28, to Arnold & Tripp]; 1852
J 576 [Arnold & Tripp, 1894; sold August 7 to Van Lynden]; Oil on cardboard, laid down on wood
repr. p. 145 Baron R. van Lynden, The Hague (1894–his d.); his 133/4 x 201/16 in. (35 x 51 cm)
widow (until 1900; her gift to Rijksmuseum) Musée du Louvre, Paris, Département des Peintures,
Provenance: the artist’s estate sale, Hôtel Drouot, Bequest of Marcel Beurdeley, 1979 (RF 1979-­46)
Paris, February 17–29, 1864, no. 28, withdrawn by Selected Exhibitions: Bordeaux 1851, no. 144; J 489
Delacroix’s legatee, Piron; Achille Piron (1864– Winterthur 2008, no. 24 repr. p. 186
d. 1865; his estate sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, April 21,
1865, no. 1, to Stevens); [Arthur Stevens, Brussels, Provenance: the artist’s estate sale, Hôtel Drouot,
1865; sold to Musées Royaux des Beaux‑Arts de CAT. 126 Paris, February 17–29, 1864, no. 98, to Duchâtel;
Belgique, Brussels] Study of the Sea comte Duchâtel (1864–at least 1885); Alfred
1851(?) Beurdeley (by 1912–d. 1919; his estate sale, Galerie
Selected Exhibitions: Paris 1861–62; Bordeaux 1862, Watercolor on paper, with inscription in graphite Georges Petit, Paris, May 6–7, 1920, no. 35, to
no. 223; Paris (Mémorial) 1963, no. 419; Paris– 10 x 151/4 in. (25.4 x 38.7 cm) Beurdeley); his son, Marcel Beurdeley (1920–
Philadelphia 1998–99, no. 64 (in catalogue but not Possibly inscribed or dated (lower right): 51; stamped d. 1979; his bequest to Louvre)
in exhibition) (lower right): ED [Lugt 838]
Roberta J. M. Olson and Alexander B. V. Johnson Selected Exhibitions: Paris 1864b, no. 149; Paris
New York only 1885, no. 70; Paris (Mémorial) 1963, no. 453;
CAT. 124 repr. p. 185 Paris–Philadelphia 1998–99, no. 53; Madrid–
Pietà Barcelona 2011–12, no. 155
ca. 1850 Provenance: presumably acquired from the artist
Oil on canvas by Pierre Andrieu (d. 1892), Paris, and sold by him
133/4 x 105/8 in. (35 x 27 cm) or his widow to Vuillier; [Vuillier, Paris]; private CAT. 129
Signed (lower center): Eug. Delacroix. collection, France; [David & Constance Yates, New Christ Asleep during the Tempest
The National Museum of Art, Architecture and York, until 1995; sold to Olson and Johnson] ca. 1853
Design, Oslo (inv. NG.M.01179) Oil on canvas
J 443 20 x 24 in. (50.8 x 61 cm)
repr. p. 135 CAT. 127 Signed (lower left): Eug. Delacroix
Marphise The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York,
Provenance: Narcisse‑Virgile Diaz de la Peña (in 1852 H. O. Havemeyer Collection, Bequest of Mrs. H. O.
1855); Paul Tesse (in 1864); Elisabeth, Queen consort Oil on canvas Havemeyer, 1929 (29.100.131)
of Romania (in 1889; d. 1916); National Gallery, Oslo 325/16 x 393/4 in. (82.1 x 101 cm) J 454
(from 1918; acquired as gift from the Friends of the Signed and dated (lower left): Eug. Delacroix / 1852. repr. p. 191
National Gallery) The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, Maryland
(37.10) Provenance: ?[Francis Petit, Paris, from 1853];
Selected Exhibitions: Paris 1864a; Zürich–Frankfurt J 303 ?Bouruet‑Aubertot, Paris (by 1860); ?Monsieur R.‑L. L.
1987–88, no. 73; Copenhagen 2000, no. 19; Madrid– repr. p. 200 (until 1876; his sale, Paris, April 22, 1876, no. II);
Barcelona 2011–12, no. 146 John Saulnier, Bordeaux (by 1873?–d. 1886; his estate
Provenance: the artist (sold to Bonnet); J. P. Bonnet sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, June 5, 1886, no. 35, bought
(until 1853; his sale, Hôtel des Ventes Mobilières, in; his estate sale, Galerie Charles Sedelmeyer, Paris,
CAT. 125 Paris, February 19, 1853, no. 9, to Bulloz); Bulloz March 25, 1892, no. 8, to Durand‑Ruel); [Durand‑Ruel,
The Agony in the Garden (from 1853); sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, May 20, 1881, Paris, 1892; stock no. 2066; sold on December 13 to
1851 no. 9, presumably to Haro, possibly for Balay; Balay Durand‑Ruel, New York]; [Durand‑Ruel, New York,
Oil on canvas (by 1885); [Arnold & Tripp, Paris, in half-­shares with 1892–94; sold on January 16, 1894, to Havemeyer];
133/8 x 169/16 in. (34 x 42 cm) Knoedler, New York, 1901–4; sold to Walters]; Mr. and Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer, New York (1894–his
Signed and dated (lower left): Eug. Delacroix / 1851 Henry Walters, Baltimore (1904–d. 1931; his bequest d. 1907); Mrs. H. O. (Louisine W.) Havemeyer, New
Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam. On loan from to Walters Art Museum) York (1907–d. 1929)
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (gift of M. C. Baroness
Van Lynden-­Van Pallandt, The Hague) Selected Exhibitions: Paris 1885, no. 107; Paris Selected Exhibitions: Paris 1860, no. 349; Paris
(inv. s0086B1991) (Mémorial) 1963, no. 429; Zürich–Frankfurt 1987– 1864b, no. 125; Zürich–Frankfurt 1987–88, no. 95;
J 445 88, no. 84; Paris–Philadelphia 1998–99, no. 87; New York 1991, no. 9; Paris–Philadelphia 1998–99,
repr. p. 133 Copenhagen 2000, no. 30 no. 115; Karlsruhe 2003–4, no. 172; Minneapolis–
London 2015–16, no. 43

294 DELACROIX
CAT. 130 violatres / le ton de la mer / paraissant d’un vert / Provenance: the artist’s estate sale, Hôtel Drouot,
Saint Stephen Borne Away by His Disciples charmant mais / melé de vert d’arc en ciel / où le vert Paris, February 17–29, 1864, no. 148, to Riesener;
1853 domine (almost always a grayish violet haze at the Léon Riesener (1864–79; his estate sale, Hôtel
Oil on canvas horizon, between the tone of the sea and the blue of Drouot, Paris, April 10–11, 1879, no. 222); his widow,
581/4 x 451/4 in. (148 x 115 cm) the sky—in clear weather the violet peaks—the tone Madame Léon Riesener (1879–at least 1885); their
Signed and dated (lower left): Eug. Delacroix 1853 of the sea appears green, delightful but mixed with daughter, Madame Alexandre (Louise Thérèse)
Musée des Beaux‑Arts, Arras (inv. 859.1) the green [these two last words struck out] of a Lauwick (until d. 1932); by descent to Madame
J 449 rainbow, in which green predominates); stamped Georges (Gabrielle) Itasse (by 1933–?1984); [E. V.
repr. p. 131 (lower right): ED Thaw, New York, 1984]; purchased in 1984 by the
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Gift Musées Nationaux for Musée d’Orsay
Provenance: the artist, Paris (until 1859; sold to the from the Karen B. Cohen Collection of Eugène
municipality of Arras for the Musée des Beaux‑Arts) Delacroix, in honor of Jill Newhouse, 2014 Selected Exhibitions: Paris 1864b, no. 140; Paris
(2014.732.1) 1885, no. 169; Paris (Mémorial) 1963, no. 467;
Selected Exhibitions: Paris (Salon) 1853, no. 350; New York only Paris–Philadelphia 1998–99, no. 12; Copenhagen
Paris 1885, no. 5; Paris (Mémorial) 1963, no. 437; repr. p. 187 2000, no. 12; Madrid–Barcelona 2011–12, no. 168;
Zürich–Frankfurt 1987–88, no. 88; Paris–Philadelphia Paris 2013–14, no. 25
1998–99, no. 111; Karlsruhe 2003–4, no. 181; Madrid– Provenance: the artist’s estate sale, Hôtel Drouot,
Barcelona 2011–12, no. 160; Leipzig 2015–16, no. 81 Paris, February 17–29, 1864, part of no. 600; private
collection, Paris; [Jill Newhouse]; Karen B. Cohen, CAT. 135
The subject is drawn from the New Testament (Acts New York Lion Hunt (fragment)
of the Apostles 6 and 7:55–60). 1855
Selected Exhibitions: New York 1991, no. 69; Oil on canvas
Paris–Philadelphia 1998–99, no. 57 (Paris only); 687/8 in. x 11 ft. 95/16 in. (175 x 359 cm)
CAT. 131 Paris 2009–10, no. 105 Signed and dated (lower center): Eug. Delacroix 1855.
Christ on the Sea of Galilee Musée des Beaux‑Arts, Bordeaux (inv. Bx E 469)
1854 J 198
Oil on canvas CAT. 133 repr. p. 147
239/16 x 287/8 in. (59.8 x 73.3 cm) A Lion and a Tiger, Fighting
Signed and dated (lower right): Eug. Delacroix / 1854 ca. 1854 Provenance: commissioned from the artist by the
The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, Maryland Graphite on wove paper state on March 20, 1854, with payment completed in
(37.186) 125/16 x 91/2 in. (31.3 x 24.1 cm) November 1855; allocated in 1856 to the Musée de
J 456 Stamped (lower right): ED Bordeaux
repr. p. 191 The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York,
Bequest of Gregoire Tarnopol, 1979, and Gift of Selected Exhibitions: Paris 1855, no. 2939; Bordeaux
Provenance: [Adolphe Beugniet, Paris, 1854/55; Alexander Tarnopol, 1980 (1980.21.13) 1857, no. 154; Paris (Mémorial) 1963, no. 466;
presumably bought from the artist; sold to Troyon]; New York only Paris–Philadelphia 1998–99, no. 14
Constant Troyon, Paris (by 1855–d. 1865); his mother repr. p. 146
(1865; to Frémyn); Frémyn (from 1865); Tabourier The original dimensions of this painting were 260 x
(in 1878); Gustave Viot (by 1883–86; his sale, Galerie Provenance: the artist’s estate sale, Hôtel Drouot, 359 cm; the perimeter, notably the top portion, was
Georges Petit, Paris, May 25, 1886, no. 2, to Levesque); Paris, February 17–29, 1864, no. 470; Alfred Robaut, lost to fire in 1870.
Levesque (from 1886); William T. Walters, Baltimore Fontenay-­sous-­Bois (d. 1909); Georges Aubry, Paris
(until d. 1894); his son, Henry Walters (1894– (by 1927); Maurice Gobin, Paris (by 1930–at least
d. 1931; his bequest to Walters Art Museum) 1939); Grégoire Tarnopol (until d. 1979) and his CAT. 136
brother Alexander Tarnopol, New York (until 1980) Lion Hunt
Selected Exhibitions: Bordeaux 1855, no. 170; Paris 1855–56
(Mémorial) 1963, no. 450; Zürich–Frankfurt 1987– Selected Exhibitions: Frankfurt 1987–88, no. I 26; Oil on canvas
88, no. 96; New York 1991, no. 10; Paris–Philadelphia New York 1991, no. 53; Paris–Philadelphia 1998–99, 227/16 x 291/8 in. (57 x 74 cm)
1998–99, no. 118; Madrid–Barcelona 2011–12, no. 165 no. 8 (Philadelphia only); Karlsruhe 2003–4, no. 183 Signed and dated (lower right): Eug. Delacroix. 1856.
Nationalmuseum, Stockholm (inv. NM 6350)
J 199
CAT. 132 CAT. 134 repr. p. 150
The Sea at Dieppe Lion Hunt, sketch
probably 1854 1854 Provenance: [Détrimont; bought from the artist
Watercolor on laid paper Oil on canvas upon completion in April 1856; possibly sold to
101/2 x 179/16 in. (26.7 x 44.6 cm) 357/16 x 4515/16 in. (90 x 116.7 cm) Goldsmith (or Goldschmidt)]; Adolf Liebermann
Inscribed in graphite (at right): presque toujours brume Musée d’Orsay, Paris (RF 1984‑33) von Wahlendorf (until 1876; his sale, Hôtel Drouot,
grisatre violete [sic] / à l’horizon entre le ton de la mer / J 197 Paris, May 8–9, 1876, no. 24, bought in); Fop Smit,
et le bleu du ciel / par le beau temps / les montagnes / repr. p. 147 Rotterdam (until 1893; sold on February 4 to
Durand‑Ruel); [Durand‑Ruel, Paris, 1893–95; sold on

Checklist 295
April 30 to Heugel]; Henri Heugel (1895–1905; his This is a reduced variant of the prime version, Selected Exhibitions: Paris 1864b, no. 103; Paris–
sale, Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, May 26, 1905, exhibited at the Salon of 1845, and now in the Musée Philadelphia 1998–99, no. 124 (Paris only);
no. 5, to Bauml); Bauml (from 1905); A. F. Klaveness, des Augustins, Toulouse (fig. 37). Copenhagen 2000, no. 20; Karlsruhe 2003–4,
Oslo (in 1929); Philip and Grace Sandblom, Lund no. 179; Winterthur 2008, no. 22; Madrid–Barcelona
(until 1970; their gift to Nationalmuseum) 2011–12, no. 172; Leipzig 2015–16, no. 87
CAT. 139
Selected Exhibitions: Paris–Philadelphia 1998–99, The Bride of Abydos (Selim and Zuleika) This is a reduced variant of the painting in Saint‑
no. 13 (Paris only); Madrid–Barcelona 2011–12, no. 169 1857 Denys-­du-­Saint‑Sacrement, Paris (fig. 48), with the
Oil on canvas composition reversed (as in cats. 100 and 101).
183/4 x 153/4 in. (47.6 x 40 cm)
CAT. 137 Signed and dated (lower left): Eug. Delacroix / 1857.
Hilly Landscape Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, Texas CAT. 141
ca. 1855 (AP 1986.04) Abduction of Rebecca
Oil on paper, laid down on canvas J 325 1858
71/2 x 111/8 in. (19.1 x 28.3 cm) repr. p. 155 Oil on canvas
Private collection, New York 415/16 x 321/16 in. (105 x 81.5 cm)
J 484a Provenance: gift of the artist to his landlord, Jules Signed and dated (lower center, on stone block):
New York only Hurel, Paris (March 15, 1858–at least 1889); [E. Le Eug. Delacroix 1858.
repr. p. 183 Roy et Cie, Paris; sold to Knoedler]; [Knoedler, Musée du Louvre, Paris, Département des Peintures,
Paris, until 1913; sold in June to Soucaret]; Madame Bequest of George Thomy-­Thiéry, 1902 (RF 1392)
Provenance: the artist’s estate sale, Hôtel Drouot, Soucaret (from 1913); Madame Emile Dhainaut (until J 326
Paris, February 17–29, 1864, probably part of no. 219; 1924; her sale, Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, May 19, repr. p. 175
Sir Michael Sadler, Oxford (by 1932–d. 1943; 1924, no. 6, to Diehl); Marchal Diehl (from 1924);
exhibited, presumably as part of his estate, at Leicester private collection, Switzerland (from 1980); [Lentes Provenance: the artist, Paris (sold in 1858 to
Galleries, London, 1944, and sold by them to Russell]; Trading S.A., Zug, Switzerland]; Kimbell Art Hartmann); Jacques Hartmann, Mulhouse (1858–76;
Mrs. Gilbert Russell, possibly Mottisfont, Hampshire, Museum, Fort Worth (purchased in 1986) his anonymous sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, May 11,
until 1972, and thereafter London (1944–d. 1982; 1876, no. 10; to Bague); [Bague, Paris, in 1876];
her estate sale, Phillips, London, November 27, 1984, Selected Exhibitions: Zürich–Frankfurt 1987–88, F. Kramer (in 1878); [Arnold & Tripp and Bague et
no. 110, to Emery); Dr. and Mrs. Eric Emery (1984– no. 105; New York 1991, no. 12; New Orleans–New Cie, 1882; bought from an unspecified source in
87; sold through Richard Nathanson, London, to York–Cincinnati 1996–97, no. 13; Paris–Philadelphia half‑shares with another purchaser on April 21, 1882;
O’Reilly); [William O’Reilly, New York, 1987–88; 1998–99, no. 85; Copenhagen 2000, no. 34; sold the same day to Secrétan]; Eugène Secrétan
sold to private collection]; private collection Minneapolis–London 2015–16 (Minneapolis only) (from 1882); comte de Jaucourt; George Thomy‑Thiéry
(since 1988) (by January 1889–1902; his bequest to Louvre)
This is the last of four painted versions of this
Selected Exhibitions: New York 1991, no. 11; New subject, drawn from Lord Byron’s poem The Bride of Selected Exhibitions: Paris (Salon) 1859, no. 824;
York 2000–2001, no. 46; Paris 2009–10, no. 103 Abydos (1813), published in French in 1821. Paris (Mémorial) 1963, no. 501; Zürich–Frankfurt
1987–88, no. 111; Paris–Philadelphia 1998–99, no. 91;
Copenhagen 2000, no. 35; Madrid–Barcelona
CAT. 138 CAT. 140 2011–12, no. 173
The Sultan of Morocco and His Entourage Lamentation over the Body of Christ
1856 1857 This is a different treatment of the subject depicted
Oil on canvas Oil on canvas in cat. 105.
259/16 x 215/8 in. (64.9 x 54.9 cm) 1415/16 x 181/4 in. (38 x 46.3 cm)
Signed and dated (lower right): Eug. Delacroix / 1856 Signed and dated (lower left): Eug. Delacroix. 1857.
Private collection Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe (inv. 2661) CAT. 142
J 401 J 466 Ovid among the Scythians
New York only repr. p. 136 1859
repr. p. 109 Oil on canvas
Provenance: probably bought from the artist by 345/8 x 513/16 in. (88 x 130 cm)
Provenance: Frédéric Hartmann, Paris (1856– Bouruet‑Aubertot (by 1864–his d.; his estate sale, Signed and dated (lower right): Eug. Delacroix / 1859
d. 1880; commissioned from the artist; delivered Hôtel Drouot, Paris, February 22, 1869, no. 7, The National Gallery, London, Bought, 1956
October 1856; his estate sale, rue de Courcelles, withdrawn and sold privately, probably to Gavet); (inv. NG6262)
no. 18, Paris, May 7, 1881, no. 1, to Pereire); Gustave Gavet (?from 1869; sold to Laurent‑Richard); J 334
Pereire, Paris (from 1881); his son‑in‑law, Eugène Mir Laurent‑Richard (until 1878; his sale, Hôtel Drouot, repr. p. 219
(by 1928–d. 1930); [Brame, Paris, until 1972]; Norton Paris, May 23–25, 1878, no. 15, bought in); Albert de
Simon Foundation, Pasadena (1972–at least 1986; inv. Saint‑Albin; John Balli, London (until 1913; his sale, Provenance: Benoît Fould (commissioned from the
F. 72.33.P); private collection Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, May 22, 1913, no. 11); artist in March 1856; Fould died in July 1858, before
Laroche Gand; Le Roy, Paris; Mrs. Walter the painting was completed, but the commission was
Feilchenfeldt, Zürich (until 1978; sold to Staatliche honored by his widow); his widow, Madame Fould;
Kunsthalle Karlsruhe) their niece, Madame de Sourdeval (in 1892); her

296 DELACROIX
daughter, Madame Charles Demachy; her daughter, CAT. 144 Autograph Manuscripts by Delacroix
baronne Ernest Seillière; her heirs (sold to de Hauke Arab Horses Fighting in a Stable Lent by the Library of the Institut National
by 1956); [César de Hauke, until 1956; sold to 1860 ­d’Histoire de l’Art, Paris
National Gallery] Oil on canvas
253/8 x 317/8 in. (64.5 x 81 cm) School Notebook no. 8
Selected Exhibitions: Paris (Salon) 1859, no. 822, Signed and dated (lower left): Eug. Delacroix / 1860 1815
Paris 1861–62; Zürich–Frankfurt 1987–88, no. 114; Musée d’Orsay, Paris, on deposit from the Musée du Folio 1
Paris–Philadelphia 1998–99, no. 95; Karlsruhe Louvre, Bequest of comte Isaac de Camondo, 1911 Collections Jacques Doucet (Ms 246–8)
2003–4, no. 209; Madrid–Barcelona 2011–12, (RF 1988)
no. 176; Minneapolis–London 2015–16, no. 56 J 413 Journal, 1822–24
repr. p. 212 First Notebook (September 3–October 27, 1822)
In A.D. 8, the Roman poet Ovid (43 B.C.–A.D. 17) was Folios 15v and 16r (October 8, 1822)
banished by Emperor Augustus to the banks of the Provenance: [Estienne; thought to have been Collections Jacques Doucet (Ms 247–1)
Black Sea, where, according to the Greek historian commissioned from the artist]; Allou or Erler (until
Strabo, he was greeted with hospitality by the 1872; their sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, February 12, Second Notebook (April 15, 1823–January 27, 1824)
Scythians, who fed him mare’s milk. 1872, no. 13, to Durand‑Ruel); [Durand-­Ruel, Paris, Folio 22v (January 27, 1824)
1872–73]; John Saulnier, Bordeaux (in 1873); Charles Collections Jacques Doucet, gift of David David-­
Hayem, Bordeaux (in 1885); comte Isaac de Weill, 1924 (Ms 247–2)
CAT. 143 Camondo (until d. 1911; his bequest to Louvre)
Amadis de Gaule Delivers a Damsel from Galpan’s Fourth Notebook (April 16–May 15, 1824)
Castle Selected Exhibitions: Paris 1885, no. 96; Paris Folios 15v and 16r (May 7, 1824)
1859–60 (Mémorial) 1963, no. 506; Paris 1994–95, no. 102; Collections Jacques Doucet (Ms 247–4)
Oil on canvas Paris–Philadelphia 1998–99, no. 108; Karlsruhe
211/2 x 253/4 in. (54.6 x 65.4 cm) 2003–4, no. 220; Madrid–Barcelona 2011–12, Fifth Notebook (May 18–October 5, 1824)
Signed and dated (lower left): Eug. Delacroix 1860 no. 179; Paris 2014–15, no. 72 Folios 2v and 3r (June 1, 1824)
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, Adolph D. Collections Jacques Doucet, gift of David David-­
and Wilkins C. Williams Fund (57.1) Weill, 1924 (Ms 247–5)
J 336 CAT. 145
repr. p. 176 Shipwreck on the Coast Journal, 1847
1862 Folios 18v and 19r (March 12–15, 1847)
Provenance: the artist, Paris (sold prior to comple- Oil on canvas Collections Jacques Doucet (Ms 253–1)
tion in late 1859 to Cachardy); [Cachardy, in 1859; 151/4 x 18 in. (38.7 x 45.7 cm)
sold to Gerantet]; Claudius Gerantet, Saint‑Etienne Signed and dated (lower right): Eug. Delacroix / 1862. Journal, 1850
(by January 4, 1860; d. 1889); [Gustave Tempelaere, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Museum purchase Folios 72v and 73r (October 14–17, 1850)
1898; bought at Saint‑Etienne in November; sold on funded by the Agnes Cullen Arnold Endowment Collections Jacques Doucet (Ms 253–2)
November 11 to Arnold & Tripp]; [Arnold & Tripp, Fund, 2004 (2004.1693) New York only
Paris, 1898–99; sold on July 19 to Knoedler]; J 490
[Knoedler, New York, 1899; sold in August to repr. p. 196 Journal, 1855
Henry]; H. S. Henry, Philadelphia (1899–1907; his Folios 129v and 130r (October 3–4, 1855)
sale, American Art Association, New York, January Provenance: Victor Chocquet, Paris (by 1864– Collections Jacques Doucet (Ms 253–3)
25, 1907, no. 15, to Montaignac); I. Montaignac (from d. 1891); his widow, Marie Chocquet (1891–d. 1899;
1907); Charles Viguier, Paris (in 1910); Eugène(?) her estate sale, Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, July 1–4, Journal, 1857
Blot; Dr. H. Graber, Zürich (in 1939); [Raeber 1899, no. 47, to Durand-­Ruel); [Durand-­Ruel, Paris, Folios 118v and 119r (August 24–25, 1857)
Gallery, Basel, inv. 44435]; private collection, Basel from 1899]; Denys Cochin (in 1916); Boner, Berlin Collections Jacques Doucet, bequest of Etienne
(until 1954; sold on February 25 to Knoedler); (in 1930); A. M. Haussamann (or Hausamann), Moreau-­Nélaton, 1927 (Ms 253–5)
[Knoedler, New York, 1954–57; sold to Virginia Zürich (in 1956); by descent to private collection
Museum of Fine Arts] (until 2002; sale, Christie’s, London, June 20, 2002, Lettres d’Eugène Delacroix (1815–­1863) recueillies et
no. 138); [Richard Feigen, New York, 2002–4; sold publiées par M. Philippe Burty
Selected Exhibitions: Paris (Mémorial) 1963, to Museum of Fine Arts, Houston] Bound volume containing 33 letters and 3 prints
no. 508; Zürich–Frankfurt 1987–88, no. 118; New Open to Frédéric Villot, Portrait of Eugène Delacroix
Orleans–New York–Cincinnati 1996–97, no. 11; Selected Exhibitions: Paris (Mémorial) 1963, (after a Self-­Portrait), 1847, mezzotint and drypoint on
Paris–Philadelphia 1998–99, no. 96 no. 527; Madrid–Barcelona 2011–12, no. 180; chîne collée (for another impression, see fig. 1)
Minneapolis–London 2015–16, no. 74 Collections Jacques Doucet, gift of David David-­
The subject is drawn from the chivalric romance Weil, 1926 (Ms 248)
Amadis de Gaule, which originated in fourteenth-­ New York only
century Spain or Portugal. Delacroix likely knew the
version by Louis-­Elisabeth de la Vergne, comte de
Tressan, published in Amsterdam in 1779.

Checklist 297
 Bibliography

Allard 2004 Anon. 1836 Baudelaire 1859b (1976 ed.)

Allard, Sébastien. “Delacroix au Salon de 1822: La Anonymous. “Salon de 1836 (IIe article). Peinture.” Baudelaire, Charles. “Salon de 1859.” In Baudelaire
stratégie de la conquête.” In Paris 2004, pp. 13–35. L’artiste 11, no. 7 (1836), pp. 77–78. 1976, vol. 2, pp. 608–82. Originally published in
Revue française (June 10, June 20, July 1, and
Allard 2005 Ariosto 1850 July 20, 1859).
Allard, Sébastien, ed. Paris 1820: L’affirmation de la Ariosto, Ludovico. Roland furieux. French
génération romantique; actes de la journée d’étude translation by the comte de Tressan. 2 vols. Paris: Baudelaire 1863 (1976 ed.)
organisée par le Centre André Chastel le 24 mai 2004. Ruel aîné, 1850. Baudelaire, Charles. “L’oeuvre et la vie d’Eugène
Bern: Peter Lang, 2005. Delacroix.” In Baudelaire 1976, vol. 2, pp. 742–70.
Astruc 1859 Originally published in L’opinion nationale
Allard 2010 Astruc, Zacharie. Les 14 stations du Salon 1859, suivies (September 2–November 22, 1863).
Allard, Sébastien. “Delacroix, Delaroche, and the d’un récit douloureux. Paris: Poulet-­Malassis et de
Place of the Spectator.” In Marseilles–Rovereto– Broise, 1859. Baudelaire 1976
Toronto 2009–10 (Italian ed.), pp. 130–39. (2009 Baudelaire, Charles. Oeuvres complètes. Edited by
French ed., pp. 122–31.) Bandiera 1980 Claude Pichois. 2 vols. New ed. Bibliothèque de la
Bandiera, John. “Byron’s ‘Lara’ as a Source for an Pléiade 7. Paris: Gallimard, 1976.
Allard 2011 Early Work by Delacroix.” Marsyas: Studies in the
Allard, Sébastien. “Delacroix et l’idée du sujet en History of Art 20 (1979–80, pub. 1980), pp. 57–60, Baudelaire 1981
peinture.” In Madrid–Barcelona 2011–12, pp. 24–60. pls. 26, 27. Baudelaire, Charles. Art in Paris, 1845–1862:
Salons and Other Exhibitions Reviewed by Charles
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Mantz, Paul. “Salon de 1855, sections V, VI: France.” Exposition de 1836. Société Centrale des Amis des Arts Collection of Eugène Delacroix.” The Metropolitan
Revue française, ann. 1, 2 (June 1855), pp. 170–77. en Province, Moulins, 1836. Moulins: Imprimerie Museum of Art, New York, July 17–November 12,
P. A. Desrosiers, 1836. 2018. Exh. cat., Delacroix Drawings: The Karen B.
Mantz 1859 Cohen Collection, by Ashley E. Dunn, with contribu-
Mantz, Paul. “Salon de 1859.” Gazette des beaux-­arts 2 Nantes–Paris–Piacenza 1995–96 tions by Colta Ives and Marjorie Shelley. New York:
(May 1, 1859), pp. 129–41. Les années romantiques: La peinture française de 1815 à The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2018.
1850. Musée des Beaux-­Arts de Nantes, December 4,
Marseilles–Rovereto–Toronto 2009–10 1995–March 17, 1996; Galeries Nationales du Grand Orléans 1997–98
Drama and Desire: Art and Theatre from the French Palais, Paris, April 16–July 15, 1996; Palazzo Gotico, Le temps des passions: Collections romantiques des
Revolution to the First World War. Musée Cantini, Piacenza, September 6–November 17, 1996. Exh. cat. musées d’Orléans. Musée des Beaux-­Arts d’Orléans,
Marseilles, October 6, 2009–January 3, 2010; by Isabelle Julia, Jean Lacambre, et al. Paris: Réunion November 7, 1997–March 31, 1998. Exh. cat. by
Museo di Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Trento des Musées Nationaux, 1995. Eric Moinet, Isabelle Klinka, Mehdi Korchane, et al.
e Rovereto, February 6–May 23, 2010; Art Gallery of Orléans: Musée des Beaux-­Arts d’Orléans, 1997.
Ontario, Toronto, June 19–September 26, 2010. Exh. Néto 1995
cat. edited by Guy Cogeval and Beatrice Avanzi. Néto, Isabelle. Granet et son entourage. Archives de Paris 1826a
Milan: Skira, 2010. (French ed.: De la scène au tableau: l’art français, n.s., 31. Nogent-­le-­Roi: Librarie des Arts Explication des ouvrages de peinture exposés au profit des
David, Füssli, Klimt, Moreau, Lautrec, Degas, Vuillard. et Métiers-­Editions Jacques Laget, 1995. Grecs. Galerie Lebrun, rue du Gros-­Chenet, no 4,
Paris: Skira Flammarion, 2009.) Paris, May 15–July 3, 1826. Exh. cat. Paris: Firmin
Didot, 1826.

302 DELACROIX
Paris 1826b Paris 1846b Paris 1885
Explication des ouvrages de peinture exposes au profit des Explication des ouvrages de peinture exposés dans la Exposition Eugène Delacroix au profit de la souscription
Grecs. Galerie Lebrun, rue du Gros-­Chenet, no 4, Galerie des Beaux-­Arts, boulevard Bonne-­Nouvelle, 22. destinée à élever à Paris un monument à sa mémoire.
Paris, July 16–November 19, 1826. Au profit de la Caisse de Secours et pensions de la Société Ecole Nationale des Beaux-­Arts, Paris, March 6–
des Artistes . . . “Deuxième année,” but now at 75 rue April 15, 1885. Exh. cat. by Auguste Vacquerie
Paris 1829a Saint-­Lazare. Galerie des Beaux-­Arts, Paris, opened and Paul Mantz. Paris: Imprimerie Pillet et
Catalogue des tableaux et objets d’art exposés dans le December 15, 1846. Dumoulin, 1885.
Musée Colbert. Musée Colbert, Paris, November 1829.
Exh. cat. Paris: Henri Gaugain et Cie; Imprimerie de Paris 1848 Paris 1930
J. Tastu, 1829. Explication des ouvrages de peinture, sculpture et Exposition Eugène Delacroix: Peintures, aquarelles,
architecture: exposées à la Galerie Bonne-­Nouvelle, au pastels, dessins, gravures, documents. Musée du
Paris 1829b profit de la Caisse des secours et pensions de l’Association. Louvre, Paris, June–July 1930. Exh. cat. preface by
Catalogue des tableaux et objets d’art exposés dans le Galeries Bonne-­Nouvelle, Paris, “Troisième année,” Paul Jamot. Paris: Musées Nationaux, Palais du
Musée Colbert. 2nd exhibition. Musée Colbert, Paris, January 1848. Louvre, 1930.
December 1829. Exh. cat. Paris: Henri Gaugain et
Cie; Imprimerie de J. Tastu, 1829. Paris 1855 Paris (Mémorial) 1963
Exposition Universelle de 1855: Ouvrages de peinture, “Eugène Delacroix, 1798–1863: Exposition du
Paris 1830a sculpture, gravure, lithographie et architecture des artistes centenaire.” Musée du Louvre, Paris, May–
Catalogue des tableaux et objets d’art exposés dans le vivants, étrangers et français. Palais des Beaux-­Arts, September 1963. Exh. cat., Mémorial de l’exposition
Musée Colbert. 3rd exhibition. Musée Colbert, Paris, Paris, May 1–October 31, 1855. Exh. cat. Paris: Eugène Delacroix . . . à l’occasion du centenaire de la mort
February 1830. Exh. cat. Paris: Henri Gaugain et Cie; Vinchon, 1855. de l’artiste, by Maurice Sérullaz. Rev. and enl. ed.
Imprimerie de J. Tastu, 1830. Paris: Editions des Musées Nationaux, 1963.
Paris 1860
Paris 1830b Catalogue de tableaux tirés de collections d’amateurs et Paris 1982–83
Catalogue des tableaux et objets d’art exposés dans le exposés au profit de la Caisse de Secours des Artistes, La Liberté guidant le peuple. Musée du Louvre, Paris,
Musée Colbert. 4th exhibition. Musée Colbert, Paris, Peintres, Sculpteurs, Architectes et Dessinateurs. [Galerie November 1982–February 7, 1983. Exh. cat. by
May 1830. Publication not located. Louis Martinet], 26, Boulevard des Italiens, Paris, Hélène Toussaint. Paris: Editions de la Réunion des
opened by early February 1860 and replenished in Musées Nationaux, 1982.
Paris 1830c May. Exh. cat. Paris: Imprimerie de J. Claye, 1860.
Explication des ouvrages de peinture, sculpture, Paris 1994–95
architecture, gravure, dessins et lithographies, exposés Paris 1861–62 Delacroix in Morocco. Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris,
dans la galerie de la Chambre des Pairs, au profit des “Exposition de peinture” (until May or June 1862); September 27, 1994–January 15, 1995. Exh. cat. by
blessés des 27, 28 et 29 juillet 1830. Palais du “Société Nationale des Beaux-­Arts: Première exposi- Brahim Alaoui, Maurice Sérullaz, Maurice Arama,
Luxembourg, Paris, opened October 14, 1830. tion des sociétaires fondateurs” (from June 1862). Lee Johnson, and Arlette Sérullaz; translated by
Exh. cat. Paris: Vinchon, 1830. [Galerie Louis Martinet], 26, Boulevard des Italiens, Tamara Blondel. Paris: Flammarion, 1994. (French
Paris, Spring 1861–Spring 1862. Exhibition contents ed., Delacroix, le voyage au Maroc. Paris: Institut du
Paris 1831 changed during this time. No catalogue. Monde Arabe, 1994.)
École des Beaux-­Arts, Paris, April 1831. Publication
not located. Paris 1862 Paris 1995
Exhibition title unknown. Galerie du Cercle des Eugène Delacroix à l’Assemblée nationale: Peintures
Paris 1832 Beaux-­Arts [Francis Petit], rue de Choiseul, Paris, murales, esquisses, dessins. Palais Bourbon, Paris,
Explication des ouvrages de peinture, sculpture, May–June 1862. No catalogue. February 16–April 1, 1995. Exh. cat. by Arlette
architecture et gravure, exposés à la galerie du Musée Sérullaz and Nicole Moulonguet. Paris:
Colbert, le 6 mai 1832, par MM. les Artistes, au profit des Paris 1864a L’Assemblée, 1995.
indigens des douze arrondissemens de la ville de Paris, “Exposition du Cercle de la Rue de Choiseul et de la
atteints de la maladie épidémique. Musée Colbert, Paris, Société Nationale des Beaux-­Arts.” Paris, unknown Paris 2001
opened May 6, 1832. Exh. cat. Paris: Imprimerie de venue near the rue de Choiseul, February 1864. Médée furieuse. Musée National Eugène-Delacroix,
Dezauche, 1832. Organized by Francis Petit. No catalogue. Paris, April 24–July 30, 2001. Exh. cat. by Arlette
Sérullaz et al. Paris: Réunion des Musées
Paris 1845 Paris 1864b Nationaux, 2001.
Théâtre de l’Odéon, Paris, opened November 1845. Oeuvres d’Eugène Delacroix. Société Nationale des
No catalogue. Beaux-­Arts, held at [Galerie Louis Martinet], 26, Paris 2002–3
Boulevard des Italiens, Paris, opened August 13, 1864. Chevaux et cavaliers arabes dans les arts d’Orient et
Paris 1846a Publication not located. d’Occident. Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris,
Explication des ouvrages de peinture exposés dans la November 26, 2002–March 30, 2003. Exh. cat.
Galerie des Beaux-­Arts, boulevard Bonne-­Nouvelle, 22. edited by Jean-Pierre Digard. Paris: Institut du
Au profit de la Caisse de Secours et pensions de la Société Monde Arabe; Gallimard, 2002.
des Artistes . . . . Galerie des Beaux-­Arts, Paris, opened
January 11, 1846. (Delacroix’s work appears in “suites
du Supplément.”)

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 Index

Note: Italic page numbers refer to illustrations. Bellini, Vincenzo, 133, 271n137 Cato, 79
Paintings are identified by their catalogue raisonné Belvedere Torso, 12 Cavé, Edmond, 106–7, 126
number in Johnson 1981–2002, abbreviated as Ben-Chimol, Abraham, 268n140 Cavé, Marie-Elisabeth, 80, 272n31
“J” followed by the number. Prints are identified Berjon, Louis Antoine, 139 Cézanne, Paul, 95, 265
by the number in Delteil and Strauber 1997, Berlioz, Hector, 241 Champaigne, Philippe de, 108
abbreviated as “D-S” followed by the number. Bernast, Virginie, 116 Champfleury, 245, 265
Berryer, Antoine Pierre, 199 Champmartin, Charles-Emile Callande de, 164, 246,
A Beugniet, Adolphe, 136, 193 247, 249
Académie de France, Rome, 5, 246, 249, 251, 273n28 Blanc, Charles, 86–87, 91, 95 Massacre of the Innocents, 29
Académie des Beaux-Arts, 164, 167, 240, 246, 255, Bodinier, Guillaume, 247, 248 Massacre of the Janissaries (fig. 12), 29–30, 29
273n8 Bodinier, Victor, 273n34 Charles the Bold, 57, 60
Andrieu, Pierre, 11 Bodmer, Karl, 196 Charles X (r. 1824–30), 18, 57, 73, 104
Ariosto, Ludovico, 97, 212, 245 Bonaparte, Louis-Napoleon. See Napoleon III Chassériau, Théodore, 169
Orlando furioso, 199–201 (r. 1852–70) Chateaubriand, François René de, Atala, 230
Arnoux, Louis d,’ 107 Bonaparte, Lucien, 248 Chauvin, Auguste, 19
Arrowsmith, John, 34 Bonaparte, Napoleon. See Napoleon I Chazal, Antoine, 139
art for art’s sake, 78, 96 (r. 1804–1814/15) Chenavard, Claude Aimé, 111
Astruc, Zacharie, 164, 169, 178, 222 Bonheur, Rosa, 137 Chenavard, Paul, 215, 217
Bonington, Richard Parkes, 18, 164 Chennevières, Philippe de, 164
B Boucher, François, 199 Chesneau, Ernest, 164, 169
Backhuysen, Ludolf, 190, 193 Diana Leaving Her Bath, 203 Chevreul, Michel Eugène, 95
Barbizon school, 165, 177, 178, 198 Boudin, Eugène, 169 Chopin, Frédéric, 207, 241
Baroque style, 117, 121, 138, 167, 190 Boulanger, Louis, 158 Coëtlosquet, Charles Yves César Cyr du, 37
Barye, Antoine Louis, 47, 97 Boulogne, Valentin de, 120 Cogniet, Léon, 104, 164, 246, 248, 252, 274n2
Bassano, Jacopo, 221 Bourbon Restoration, 4, 8, 10, 19, 30, 250 Scene from the Massacre of the Innocents, 29
Baudelaire, Charles Bouruet-Aubertot, Jean-Hector, 136, 154 Colet, Louise, 160
and Champfleury, 245, 273n2 Brantôme, Pierre de Bourdeille, 18, 156 Colin, Alexandre, 164, 251
as critic, 162, 265 Les vies des dames galantes, 231 Colonna, duchesse, 198
on Delacroix and Fromentin, 178 Bril, Paul, Diana Discovering Callisto’s Pregnancy colorist movement, 165, 170
on Delacroix and Guérin, 253 (fig. 96), 216, 216 Conseil d’Etat, 104–5, 268n5
on Delacroix compared to tiger, 47 Bruegel, Pieter, the Elder, 190, 221 Constable, John, 37
Delacroix’s association with, 240 Brummel, Beau, 38 Hay Wain, 34
on Delacroix’s concerns of preservation, 107 Bruyas, Alfred, 11, 259 Corbin, Alain, 63, 74
on Delacroix’s writing, 235 Buddhist art, 154 Cornelius, Peter, 63
dictum on domestic poem, 91–92 Burty, Philippe, 164 Corot, Camille, 5, 90, 177, 196, 214–15, 241
homage to Delacroix, 245 Byron, George Gordon, Lord Byron Correggio, Antonio da, 99
and Poe, 241 Don Juan, 188–90 Venus and Cupid with a Satyr, 116
reviews of Delacroix, 150, 164, 167, 169, 222, The Giaour, 155 Courbet, Gustave, 78, 137, 165, 177, 195, 197, 259–65,
257–58, 259, 263 as inspiration for Delacroix, 16, 36, 40, 48, 53, 271n112, 274nn27, 36
on Romanticism, 165 57, 60, 71, 74, 97, 99, 100, 151–52, 215, 231, After Dinner at Ornans, 260
“Salon de 1859,” 173, 270n36, 273n2 232, 236, 245 The Bathers (fig. 86), 202, 203–4, 260
Bazar Bonne-Nouvelle exhibition, 164–65 Marino Faliero, Doge of Venice, 231–32 A Burial at Ornans, 204, 260, 261
Beauharnais, Eugène de, 221 Jo, La Belle Irlandaise (fig. 123), 264–65, 264
Beauvoir, Roger de, 160 C The Return from the Conference, 261
Beethoven, Ludwig van, 152, 269n84 Caillebotte, Gustave, The Floor Scrapers, 198 The Painter’s Studio (fig. 119), 71, 204, 260, 260,
Belin de Fontenay, Jean-Baptiste, Flowers in a Gold Camp, Maxime du, 95, 151, 168, 173, 265 261, 271n113
Vase, a Bust of Louis XIV, a Cornucopia, Cantaloube, Amédée, 79, 87 The Trellis, or Woman with Flowers (fig. 121),
and Armor (fig. 55), 141, 141 Caravaggesque style, 99, 100, 120, 126 262, 262
Belisarius, 9 Castagnary, Jules, 177 Wrestlers, 265
Castiglione, Baldassare, 221 Young Ladies of the Village, 178, 261

306 DELACROIX
Cournault, Charles, 90–91, 108 early career, 1–2, 4–5, 8–13, 97, 104, 225 use of color, 11–13, 18, 19, 26, 28–29, 34, 37, 50,
Coustou, Guillaume, I, Horses of Marly, 31, 268n91 family background of, 4, 204, 221, 246, 271n117 53, 71, 74, 86–87, 91, 93, 95–96, 97, 99,
Coutan, Louis Joseph Auguste, 229 finances of, 5, 17, 18, 41, 103, 202, 236, 246–47 111, 113, 117, 124, 126, 129, 133, 135, 137–41,
Cuvier, Georges, 47 flochetage technique, 95, 96, 126, 201 143–46, 150–51, 165, 166, 169, 176–77, 178,
and genres, 34, 36–38, 40–42, 47, 71, 77, 79, 97, 257, 258, 262
D 99, 121, 151, 154, 156, 158, 167, 169, 203, 211 Delacroix, Eugène, literary works of
Dalou, Aimé-Jules, 265 and grammar of bodies, 110–11, 113, 116–17, 119–20 Dictionary of Fine Arts, 167, 179, 198, 203, 214,
Dalton, Eugénie, 121 and grand medal of honor, 167 216, 239, 242
Dante Alighieri, 17, 22, 34, 41, 97, 236, 245 and Greeks, 15–17 Journal, 4, 12, 15, 17, 19, 22, 25, 27, 34, 63, 78,
The Divine Comedy, 8–9, 10, 11, 228 health of, 99, 103, 255, 257, 274n16 80, 87, 107–8, 116, 126, 129, 130, 150, 151,
Inferno, 8, 9, 228 and heroism, 53, 57, 60–63, 69–71, 79 163, 172, 179, 185, 189, 199, 202, 203, 206,
Daubigny, Charles-François, 177 and history painting, 19, 24, 42, 57, 61, 71, 77, 212, 221, 228, 232, 235–43, 250–51, 257, 260,
Daumier, Honoré, 240 79, 87, 97, 99, 102, 104, 111, 113, 145, 156, 268n87, 297
David, Jacques Louis, 4, 11, 12, 16, 29, 34, 57, 76, 104, 158, 160, 169, 177, 179, 186, 196, 197, 253, Journal (fig. 103), 235–36, 236
165, 233, 245, 246, 249–50, 253, 267n12, 259, 265 Journal (fig. 104), 237, 237
269n41, 273n8 and iconography, 97 Journal (fig. 106), 239, 239
Death of Socrates, 100 and landscape painting, 177, 178–82, 184, 188, Notes and Sketches Made at Tangier (fig. 30), 80, 83
The Intervention of the Sabine Women, 53, 73, 253 197–98, 216, 220, 265 Delacroix, Eugène, works of
Leonidas at Thermopylae, 53 later career, 164, 173, 221–22, 233, 265 The Abduction of Rebecca (cat. 105) (J 284), 154,
Oath of the Horatii, 9 legacy of, 265 173, 174, 176, 232–33, 291
Debay, Auguste-Hyacinthe, 250–51 and literary subjects, 63, 69, 97, 99, 100, 117, Abduction of Rebecca (cat. 141) (J 326), 154,
Decamps, Alexandre-Gabriel, 93, 111, 160, 257, 270n12 130, 153, 154, 155–56, 158, 160, 162–63, 167, 168–69, 173, 175, 176, 221, 296
Degas, Edgar, 120 173, 176, 188, 189–90, 221, 225, 228–31, 245, Adam and Eve Driven from Paradise (J 538), 119
Delacroix, Charles François (father), 4, 29, 106, 167 253, 265 African Pirates Abducting a Young Woman on the
Delacroix, Charles Henry (brother), 1, 4, 106, 167, and lithography, 63, 100, 160, 162, 163 Mediterranean Coast (fig. 83) (J 308), 196,
205, 221, 267n1, 272n164 and memory process, 87, 90–91, 204–9, 211–15 197
Delacroix, Eugène and models, 19, 22–28, 34, 53, 73, 87, 90–91, The Agony in the Garden (cat. 125) (J 445), 133–34,
and act of looking, 225–33 110, 207, 236, 246, 268n87 133, 242, 294
and allegory, 71, 73–74, 76–77, 97, 110, 111, 113, modernity of, 165, 168, 239, 258–59 Alexander and the Heroic Poems of Homer (J 558),
116, 164, 166, 237, 268n21 mural paintings, 103–8, 110, 121, 124, 126, 137 119
ambition of, 4–5, 12, 77, 97, 104, 225, 253, 255 and mythology, 97, 99, 116, 138, 144–45, Amadis de Gaule Delivers a Damsel from Galpan’s
and antiquity, 9, 12, 24, 25, 77–80, 86–87, 91, 165–66, 196, 265 Castle (cat. 143) (J 336), 176–77, 176,
97, 99, 116, 117, 253 and narrative, 117, 225–33 199, 297
and apotheosis, 165–67, 168, 169 nudes of, 23, 25–29, 77, 156, 158, 202, 263 An Arab Camp at Night (fig. 93) (J 418), 211,
and aristocratic ethos, 198–204 and ornamental painting, 97 212–13, 242
and art market, 15–18, 102 on painter’s art distinguished from poet’s art, Andromeda, or Perseus and Andromeda (J 314),
art training of, 4, 5, 11–13, 96, 225, 245–49, 272n2, 12–13, 78, 79 196, 271nn72, 74
273nn6, 16 and painting as microcosm, 217–18, 220–22 Andromeda (J 307), 196, 271nn72, 73
assistants of, 103, 121 philhellenism of, 15, 16, 29–31, 34, 40, 71 The Annunciation (fig. 49) (J 425), 121, 123
British influence, 34, 36–38, 40–42, 47 and preservation of works, 106–7 Apollo Slays the Python (fig. 53) (J 578), 103, 138,
brushwork of, 48, 50, 53, 71, 95, 96, 176, 186, private patrons of, 17, 105 138, 145, 151–52, 184, 237
204, 233, 258, 262 and redefining originality, 151–53, 172 Apollo Slays the Python, sketch (cat. 122) (J 575),
and chiaroscuro, 11, 62, 90, 96, 126, 130, 190, 253 references to old masters, 215–16, 221, 225 144, 144, 269n66, 293
and composition, 97, 117, 119, 126, 129–30, 137, and religious subjects, 97, 99, 106, 121, 124, 126, Apollo Victorious over the Serpent Python, sketch (cat.
139–41, 143–44, 145, 146, 150–54, 158, 162, 129, 133–37, 153, 167, 169, 188, 190, 193–95, 123) (J 576), 144–45, 145, 269n69, 294
173, 190, 201, 215, 216, 262 215, 225, 263–65, 269n39 Arab Cavalry Practicing a Charge (Fantaisie
concentration and unity of emotion, 120–21, and repetition with variations, 102–3, 169 Arabe) (cat. 79) (J 353), 80, 84, 286
124, 126, 129–30, 133–37, 230 reprises and variations, 153–56, 158, 160, 162–63, Arab Family, or The Riding Lesson (J 395), 166
and critical opinion, 1, 11, 13, 18, 19, 29, 31, 34, 168–69, 193–94 Arab Horseman Attacked by a Lion (fig. 58)
47, 74, 77, 87, 95, 96, 99, 100, 102, 108, and rocks and forest, 195–96 (J 181), 146, 146
110, 111, 113, 117, 126, 139, 150, 151, 158, 160, and seascapes, 185–86, 188–90, 193–95, 196 Arab Horses Fighting in a Stable (cat. 144) (J 413),
162, 164–66, 167–70, 172–73, 176–77, 188, second part of career, 12, 97, 99–100, 102–4 87, 212, 213, 297
189, 216, 221, 222, 251, 257–58, 260, 265 still lifes, 36, 37–38, 139–41, 143–44, 145, 262 Arab Players (cat. 107) (J 380), 86, 88, 291
death of, 172, 245, 261, 265 theme of the double, 63 Arabs Skirmishing in the Mountains (fig. 92)
decorative projects of, 97, 99, 100, 102, 103–8, and theory of art, 77–80, 86–87 (J 419), 210, 212, 242
110–11, 113, 116–17, 119–21, 124, 126, 129–30, travel notebooks of, 87, 180–82, 206, 235 Archimedes Killed by the Soldier (J 545), 119
133–39, 151, 164, 165, 166, 167, 172, 221, 222 Arch of Morning Glories, study for “Basket of
Flowers” (cat. 108), 141, 142, 143–44, 291

Index 307
 Aristotle Describes the Animals (J 543), 119 Christ in the Garden of Olives (The Agony in the Desdemona Cursed by Her Father (fig. 62) (J 309),
The Ascent to Calvary, or the Road to Calvary Garden) (cat. 17) (J 154), 36, 104–5, 106, 155–56, 156
(J 469), 167, 221 121, 132, 133, 137, 166, 255, 256, 277 Don Quixote in His Library (J 102), 18
Aspasie (Red Background) (fig. 10) (J 80), Christ on the Cross (cat. 85) (J 421), 99, 106, 121, The Duke of Orléans Showing His Lover (cat. 24)
27–28, 28 122, 136–37, 287 (J 111), 17, 18, 231, 278–79
Aspasie Portrait (private collection) (J 81), 27, 28 Christ on the Cross (cat. 103) (J 433), 120, 126, The Education of Achilles (fig. 46) (study for
Assemblée Nationale (Palais Bourbon), Paris, 127, 136, 166, 290 J 560), 120, 120
Deputies’ Library (fig. 39), 103, 103, 117, Christ on the Cross (fig. 52) (J 460), 136, 137 The Education of the Virgin (fig. 88) (J 426),
119–20, 121 Christ on the Cross, sketch (cat. 102) (J 432), 126, 206–7, 207
Assemblée Nationale (Palais Bourbon), Paris, 126, 290 The Education of the Virgin (fig. 89) (J 461),
Salon du Roi, featuring the frieze painting Christ on the Lake of Genesareth (cat. 99) (J 452), 206–8, 207
War (Bellum) and the pier paintings The 190, 190, 290 Emperor Justinian (J 123), 36, 104, 166
Seine (Sequana) and The Rhone (Rhodanus) Christ on the Sea of Galilee (cat. 131) (J 456), 190, The Entombment, or Christ Descended into the Tomb
(fig. 38), 102, 103, 110–11, 113, 117, 121 191, 194, 295 (J 470), 167
Attila and His Hordes Overrun Italy and the Arts, Cicero Accusing Verres (J 552), 119 Entry of the Crusaders into Constantinople (fig. 36)
220, 237 Cleopatra and the Peasant (cat. 95) (J 262), 99, (J 274), 96, 99, 100, 166, 255, 257
The Banks of the River Sébou (fig. 95) (J L169), 117, 118, 119, 120, 158, 241, 289 Erminia and the Shepherds (fig. 68) (J 331), 167,
215, 216, 221 Cliffs at Etretat (fig. 81), 195, 195 168, 169, 221
Baron Schwiter (Louis Auguste Schwiter, 1805– The Coast of Spain at Salobreña, January 19, 1832 The Execution of Doge Marino Faliero (fig. 25)
1889) (cat. 29), 37, 38, 38, 279 (fig. 74), 180, 180 (J 112), 36, 60–61, 60, 62, 166, 231–32,
The Barque of Dante (Dante and Virgil in the Collision of Arab Horsemen (cat. 81) (J 355), 80, 255, 272n26
Underworld) (fig. 2) (J 100), 1–2, 2, 3, 4, 5, 85, 287 The Farewell of Romeo and Juliet, or Romeo Bids
8–12, 16, 19, 22, 24, 50, 63, 107, 166, 188, Combat of the Giaour and Hassan (cat. 27) Juliet Farewell (J 503), 166
193, 228, 229, 236, 246, 249, 250, 255, 257 (J 114), 33, 36, 71, 279 Faust (cat. 36) (D-S 57-74), 9, 63, 280
Basket of Flowers (cat. 109) (J 502), 100, 141, Combat of the Giaour and Hassan (cat. 87) Faust
142, 143–44, 257, 262, 291 (J 257), 35, 36, 71, 288 individual plates
Basket of Flowers (cat. 111) (J 504), 139, 140, Combat of the Giaour and the Pasha (fig. 16) Faust, plate 1: Mephistopheles Aloft (cat. 38)
241, 292 (D-S 55), 32, 36, 71, 166 (D-S 58), 64, 281
Basket of Flowers and Fruit (cat. 110) (J 501), 100, Convulsionists of Tangier (fig. 34) (J 360), 87, 91, Faust, plate 2: Faust in His Study (cat. 39)
141, 143–44, 143, 166, 241, 257, 262, 292 93, 93, 96, 99, 166 (D-S 59), 64, 281
The Bathers (fig. 85) (J 169), 196, 202, 202 Count Demetrius de Palatiano (1794–1849) in Faust, plate 3: Faust and Wagner (cat. 40)
A Battlefield, Evening (fig. 13) (J 104), 30, 31 Suliot Costume (cat. 25) (J 81a), 36, 37, 40, (D-S 60), 64, 281
The Battle of Nancy, sketch (fig. 24) (J 142), 57, 59 40, 163, 279 Faust, plate 4: Faust, Wagner, and the Poodle
The Battle of Nancy and The Death of Charles the Cromwell at Windsor Castle (J 129), 231 (cat. 41) (D-S 61), 65, 281
Bold, Duke of Burgundy, January 5, 1477 The Cumaean Sibyl (J 263), 100, 117, 166 Faust, plate 5: Mephistopheles Appearing to
(cat. 69) (J 143), 57, 58–59, 99, 104, 166, Dante and the Spirits of the Great (fig. 40) (J 569), Faust (cat. 42) (D-S 62), 65, 281
241, 256, 285 103, 104, 111, 217 Faust, plate 6: Mephistopheles Receiving the
The Battle of Poitiers (cat. 68) (J 141), 105, 105, The Death of Marcus Aurelius, or Last Words of Student (cat. 43) (D-S 63), 65, 281
166, 284–85 Marcus Aurelius (J 281), 100, 107, 120, 166 Faust, plate 7: Mephistopheles in Auerbach’s
Battle of Taillebourg (J 260), 99, 106 Death of Ophelia (J 264), 160 Tavern (cat. 45) (D-S 64), 281
A Blacksmith (cat. 80) (D-S 19), 62, 63, 287 The Death of Saint John the Baptist (J 555), 119 Faust, plate 8: Faust Trying to Seduce
Boissy d’Anglas at the Convention, sketch (cat. 70) The Death of Sardanapalus (cat. 104) (J 286), Marguerite (cat. 47) (D-S 65), 63, 66, 282
(J 147), 103, 105, 106, 285 52, 53, 57, 71, 74, 77, 93, 95, 96, 104, 151, Faust, plate 9: Mephistopheles Introduces
Bouquet of Flowers (fig. 57), 144, 144 167, 220, 251, 253, 257, 260, 270n64, Himself at Martha’s House (cat. 48)
The Bride of Abydos (fig. 61) (J 311), 154, 155 271n113, 290–91 (D-S 66), 47, 47, 282
The Bride of Abydos (Selim and Zuleika) (cat. 139) The Death of Sardanapalus (fig. 20) (J 125), 48, Faust, plate 10: Marguerite at the Spinning
(J 325), 155, 155, 231, 296 48, 49, 50, 103, 107, 231, 232, 255 Wheel (cat. 49) (D-S 67), 67, 282
Cardinal Richelieu Saying Mass in the Chapel of the The Death of Sardanapalus, sheet of studies for Faust, plate 11: Duel between Faust and Valentin
Palais-Royal (J 131), 18, 137, 242, 269n58 (fig. 21), 47, 50, 50, 53 (cat. 50) (D-S 68), 67, 130, 282
Charles VI and Odette de Champdivers (cat. 23) Death of Sardanapalus, sketch (cat. 31) (J 124), 50, Faust, plate 12: Mephistopheles and Faust Fleeing
(J 110), 16, 18, 278 51, 53, 280 after the Duel (cat. 51) (D-S 69), 67, 282
Christ Asleep during the Tempest (cat. 129) (J 454), The Death of Seneca (J 548), 119 Faust, plate 13: Marguerite in Church (cat. 52)
170, 190, 191, 192, 193, 194–95, 242, 294 The Death of Valentin (fig. 51) (J 288), 130, 130, (D-S 70), 67, 282
Christ at the Column (cat. 112) (J 439), 134, 137, 166 Faust, plate 14: Faust and Mephistopheles in
134, 292 Demosthenes Haranguing the Waves, or Demosthenes the Harz Mountains (cat. 53) (D-S 71), 63,
Christ at the Column (J 447), 134–35 Declaiming by the Seashore (J 553), 119 68, 282
Christ Descended into the Tomb, or The Entombment Deputies’ Library, Assemblée Nationale (Palais Faust, plate 15: Marguerite’s Ghost Appearing to
(J 470), 167 Bourbon), Paris, (fig. 39), 103, 103, 117, Faust (cat. 54) (D-S 72), 68, 283
119–20, 121

308 DELACROIX
 Faust, plate 16: Faust and Mephistopheles Interior of a Dominican Convent in Madrid Macbeth Consulting the Witches (cat. 19) (D-S 40),
Galloping on Walpurgis Night (cat. 55) (L’Amende Honorable) (cat. 71) (J 148), 62, 63, 69, 69, 278
(D-S 73), 68, 283 62, 285 Madame Henri François Riesener (Félicité Longrois,
Faust, plate 17: Faust with Marguerite in Prison Interior of a Wood (fig. 76), 181, 181, 196 1786–1847) (cat. 89) (J 226), 4, 7, 288
(cat. 56) (D-S 74), 68, 283 Interior with Moorish Archways (fig. 29), 77, 80 Male Academy Figure: Half-Length, Side View
studies for individual plates Jacob Struggling with the Angel, Study (cat. 118), (cat. 1) (J 1), 23, 24, 275
Faust and Mephistopheles in the Tavern (Study 170, 172, 196, 293 A Man of Tangier (cat. 75), 80, 82, 286
for “Faust,” plate 7) (cat. 44), 66, 281 Jacob Wrestling with the Angel (cat. 119), 170, 172, Marphise (cat. 127) (J 303), 196, 199–201, 200,
Faust, Marguerite, and Mephistopheles in the 196, 293 271n96, 294
Street (Study for “Faust,” plate 8) (cat. 46), Jacob Wrestling with the Angel (cat. 120) (J 595), Mary Magdalene at the Foot of the Cross (J 155), 121
282 171, 172, 196, 293 Mary Magdalene in the Wilderness (fig. 122)
Mephistopheles Flying over the City (Study for Jacob Wrestling with the Angel (fig. 69) (J 602), (J 429), 100, 117, 166, 257, 263–65, 263
“Faust,” plate 1) (cat. 37), 64, 280 103, 172, 172, 196, 240, 265 Medea About to Kill Her Children (Medée furieuse)
Faust in His Study, or Mephistopheles Appears Jewish Wedding in Morocco (fig. 31) (J 366), 87, (cat. 94) (J 261), 96, 99, 106, 113, 115,
before Faust (J 116), 36 90, 91, 93, 96, 99, 107, 166, 255, 257, 116–17, 154, 166, 231, 255, 269n92, 289
Female Academy Figure: Seated, Front View 268n140 Medea About to Kill Her Children, sketch (cat. 91)
(Mademoiselle Rose) (cat. 2) (J 4), 23–24, Jewish Woman of Tangier (cat. 72), 80, 80, 285 (J 259), 113, 114, 231, 288
26–27, 26, 275 John the Baptist Beheaded (J 555), 119 Michelangelo and His Genius, 119, 269n37
Female Nude Reclining on a Divan, or Woman with July 28, 1830: Liberty Leading the People (fig. 26), Michelangelo in His Studio (cat. 114) (J 305), 119,
White Stockings (fig. 8) (J 7), 24, 24 71, 73–74, 73, 75, 76–77, 105, 116, 166, 167, 119, 292
Figure Study for “The Women of Algiers” (cat. 82), 256, 257, 269n35 Milton Dictating “Paradise Lost” to His Daughters
79, 90, 287 The Justice of Trajan (fig. 35) (J 271), 99, 99, (J 128), 36, 231
Forest View with an Oak Tree (cat. 116), 181, 182, 292 100, 106–7, 166, 255, 256, 257 Model Wearing a Turban (fig. 11), 28, 28
A Gathering of Friends on Saint Sylvester’s Day Justinian Drafting His Laws, sketch (cat. 28) Moroccan Chieftain Receiving Tribute (cat. 92)
(New Year’s, 1817–18) (fig. 3), 10, 10 (J 120), 36, 36, 104, 279 (J 359), 87, 89, 93, 289
Greece on the Ruins of Missolonghi (cat. 26) (J 98), A Lady and Her Valet (cat. 32) (J 8), 156, 157, 158, Moroccan Interior: The Green Door (fig. 28),
61, 71, 72, 73, 74, 76, 116, 279 231, 280 77, 80
A Greek and a Turk in an Interior (cat. 35), 15, The Lamentation (Christ at the Tomb) (cat. 106) Moroccan Military Exercises (cat. 78) (J 351), 80,
16, 280 (J 434), 100, 120, 126, 128, 129–30, 133, 84, 286
Guard-Room at Meknes (fig. 94) (J 374), 87, 137, 166, 291 Mortally Wounded Brigand Quenches His Thirst
213, 213 Lamentation over the Body of Christ (cat. 140) (cat. 22) (J 162), 36, 36, 278
Hamlet and Horatio in the Graveyard (cat. 86) (J 466), 136, 136, 242, 296 The Murder of the Bishop of Liège (cat. 64) (J 135),
(J 258), 99, 133, 159, 160, 162, 288 Landscape at Champrosay (cat. 113) (J 480), 182, 61–63, 61, 107, 166, 170, 189, 255, 284
Hamlet and Horatio in the Graveyard (cat. 96) 183, 292 The Natchez (cat. 84) (J 101), 229–31, 229,
(J 267), 99, 117, 160, 161, 166, 221, 289 Last Words of Marcus Aurelius, or The Death of 272n17, 287
Hamlet and Horatio in the Graveyard (fig. 66) Marcus Aurelius (J 281), 100, 107, 120, 166 Nereid, after Rubens, detail from “The Landing
(J 332), 162–63, 163, 168, 270n118 Léon Riesener (1808–1878) (cat. 88) (J 225), 4, of Maria de Medici at Marseilles” (cat. 5)
Hamlet and Horatio with the Gravediggers (fig. 65) 6, 288 (J 16), 11, 13, 275–76
(D-S 116), 160, 162, 162 Liberty Leading the People, or July 28, 1830: Liberty Nineteen Studies of Heads and Skulls of Lions
Hamlet Contemplating Yorick’s Skull (fig. 64) Leading the People (fig. 26), 71, 73–74, 73, 75, (cat. 62), 42, 43, 284
(D-S 75), 158, 162 76–77, 105, 116, 166, 167, 256, 257, 269n35 Notes and Sketches Made at Tangier (fig. 30),
Head of a Cat (fig. 19), 46, 47 A Lion and a Tiger, Fighting (cat. 133), 146, 146, 80, 83
Head of an Old Greek Woman (cat. 7) (J 77), 25, 295 Numa Pompilius and the Nymph Egeria (J 534), 119
25, 248, 276 Lion Devouring an Arab, or Lion Mauling a Dead Odalisque (fig. 63) (J 381), 156, 157, 158, 271n73
Head Study of an Indian Woman (J 88), 36 Arab (J 178), 154 Orphan Girl in the Cemetery (fig. 9) (J 78), 25,
Heliodorus Driven from the Temple (fig. 70) Lion Devouring a Rabbit (J 203), 154 25, 30, 71, 248
(J 601), 103, 172, 172, 240, 265 Lion Hunt (cat. 136) (J 199), 150–51, 150, 166, Orpheus Civilizes the Greeks and Teaches Them the
Herodotus Consults the Magi (J 546), 119 256, 257, 295–96 Arts of Peace (fig. 97) (J 270), 217, 220
Hesiod and the Muse (fig. 45) (study for J 561), Lion Hunt (fragment) (cat. 135) (J 198), 146, 147, Othello and Desdemona (fig. 116) (J 291), 100,
118, 119 148–49, 150, 151, 154, 166, 295 137, 158, 253, 253
Hilly Landscape (cat. 137) (J 484a), 182, 183, 296 Lion Hunt, sketch (cat. 134) (J 197), 147, 150, Ovid among the Scythians (cat. 142) (J 334),
Hippocrates Refusing the Gifts of the King of Persia 166, 295 119, 177, 178, 216, 218–19, 220, 221, 242,
(J 544), 119 Lion of the Atlas Mountains (cat. 66) (D-S 79), 265, 296–97
Horse Frightened by a Storm (fig. 18), 42, 45 42, 45, 284 Palais Bourbon (Assemblée Nationale), Paris,
Horseman Attacked by a Leopard (J 171a), 146 Louis Auguste Schwiter (1805–1889) (cat. 30) Deputies’ Library (fig. 39), 103, 103, 117,
Horses Coming Out of the Sea (fig. 91) (J 414), (J 82), 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41–42, 47, 279–80 119–20, 121
209, 211–12 Lycurgus Consults the Pythia (fig. 44) (study for
House with a Red Roof (fig. 73), 179, 179 J 551), 118, 119

Index 309
 Palais Bourbon (Assemblée Nationale), Salon Seated Turk (possibly Paul Barroilhet, 1805–1871) The Sultan of Morocco and His Entourage (Moulay
du Roi, Paris, featuring the frieze painting (cat. 34) (J D13), 53, 56, 280 Abd-er-Rahman, Sultan of Morocco, Emerging
War (Bellum) and the pier paintings The The Seine (Sequana) (J 525), Assemblée from His Palace in Meknes, Accompanied by
Seine (Sequana) and The Rhone (Rhodanus) Nationale (Palais Bourbon), Paris, Salon du His Guard and Principal Officers) (fig. 37)
(fig. 38), 102, 103, 110–11, 113, 117, 121 Roi (fig. 38), 102, 103, 110–11, 113, 117, 121 (J 370), 77, 100, 101, 107, 110
Peace Descends to Earth (fig. 67) (J 579), 165, 165, Self-Portrait as Ravenswood (cat. 4) (J 64), 41, 41, Sunset (cat. 121), 184, 184, 293
270n5 268n104, 275 Sunset on the Sea, Dieppe (fig. 77), 186, 187, 189
Perseus and Andromeda, or Andromeda (J 314), Self-Portrait in a Green Vest (cat. 93) (J 230), 97, Tasso in the Hospital of St. Anna, Ferrara (cat. 8)
196, 271nn72, 74 98, 289 (J 106), 70–71, 70, 166, 276
Pietà (cat. 124) (J 443), 135–36, 135, 294 The Shipwreck of Don Juan (cat. 98) (J 276), 99, Thales Fielding (1793–1837) (cat. 13) (J 70), 37,
Pietà (fig. 48) (J 564), 103, 121, 123, 124, 126, 135 166, 188–90, 188, 194, 223, 231, 289–90 38, 277
Pietà, first sketch (cat. 100) (J 562), 121, 124, 290 Shipwreck on the Coast (cat. 145) (J 490), 196, Tiger Hunt (J 194), 146, 269n71
Pietà, second sketch (cat. 101) (J 563), 121, 125, 196, 242, 255, 297 Tiger Lying at the Entrance of Its Lair (cat. 63)
126, 136, 290 Sketch after Goya’s “Caprichos” (cat. 11), 53, 54, (D-S 24), 42, 43, 284
The Pond at Le Louroux (fig. 72) (J L191), 179, 179 276–77 Torrent on the River Valentin, August 11, 1845
Portrait of Aspasie (cat. 10) (J 79), 27–28, 27, Sketches of Tigers and Men in Sixteenth-Century (fig. 75), 180, 180
91, 276 Costume (cat. 61), 46, 47, 284 The Triumph of Genius over Envy (cat. 117), 152,
Portrait of Schmareck, Tanner at Tangier (cat. 73), Socrates and His Demon, or Socrates and His Genius 153, 293
80, 83, 285 (J 549), 119 Turkish Officer Killed in the Mountains, or The
The Prisoner of Chillon (J 254), 166 Spartan Girls Practicing Wrestling (fig. 47), Death of Hassan (fig. 15) (J 113), 31, 34
Rebecca and the Wounded Ivanhoe (fig. 100) 120, 120 Turk Mounting His Horse (cat. 9) (D-S 11), 53,
(J 243), 228–29, 228, 232 Standing Moroccan (cat. 74), 80, 83, 286 56, 276
Reclining Female Nude: Back View (cat. 18) (J 6), Startled Arabian Horse in a Landscape (cat. 97), Two Bearded Heads, after Veronese (detail from
22, 23, 278 86, 88, 289 “The Marriage at Cana”) (cat. 3) (J 14),
The Rhone (Rhodanus) (J 526), Assemblée Still Life with Lobsters (fig. 17) (J 161), 36, 225–26, 227, 228, 272n6, 275
Nationale (Palais Bourbon), Paris, Salon du 37–38, 37 Two English Farm Horses (J L58), 36
Roi (fig. 38), 102, 103, 110–11, 113, 117, 121 Street in Meknes (cat. 77) (J 352), 80, 86, The Two Foscari (J 317), 167
The Riding Lesson, or Arab Family (J 395), 166 86, 286 Two Studies of a Figure in Greek Costume (Front
The Road to Calvary, or the Ascent to Calvary Studies for Saint Sebastian and Medea (fig. 41), and Side Views) (J 30), 53, 55
(J 469), 167, 221 114 Unmade Bed (fig. 7), 23, 23
Romeo Bids Juliet Farewell, or The Farewell of Studies of a Damned Man, for “The Barque of A Vase of Flowers (fig. 54) (J 492), 140, 140
Romeo and Juliet (J 503), 166 Dante” (cat. 6), 8, 9, 276 A Vase of Flowers on a Console (fig. 56) (J 503),
Royal Tiger (cat. 65) (D-S 80), 42, 44, 47, 284 Studies of a Lion, from Sketchbook with Views of 141, 141, 143
Saada, the Wife of Abraham Ben-Chimol, and Tours, France and Its Environs (cat. 60), 42, View in the Forest of Sénart (cat. 115) (J 482a),
Préciada, One of Their Daughters (cat. 76), 43, 47, 283 196, 196, 292
80, 81, 286 Studies of Bindings, an Oriental Jacket, and Figures View of Tangier from the Shore (fig. 90) (J 408),
Saint Sebastian (J 467), 167, 221 after Goya (cat. 14) (J L34), 53, 54, 277 208, 211, 242, 271n134
Saint Sebastian Tended by the Holy Women (cat. 90) Studies of Seven Greek Coins (cat. 20) (D-S 45), The Virgin of the Sacred Heart (detail) (fig. 110),
(J 422), 97, 99, 102, 106, 112, 113, 120, 53, 57, 278 5, 247, 248
130, 288 Studies of Twelve Greek and Roman Coins (cat. 21) War (Bellum) (J 518), Assemblée Nationale
Saint Stephen Borne Away by His Disciples (cat. 130) (D-S 47), 47, 53, 57, 278 (Palais Bourbon), Paris, Salon du Roi
(J 449), 130, 131, 295 Study for Don Juan (fig. 78), 189, 189 (fig. 38), 102, 103, 110–11, 113, 117, 121
Salon du Roi, Assemblée Nationale (Palais Study for Scenes from the Massacres at Chios (fig. 6), Waves Breaking against a Cliff (fig. 82), 195, 195
Bourbon), Paris, featuring the frieze 22, 22, 230 Wild Horse (cat. 59) (D-S 78), 42, 45, 283
painting War (Bellum) and the pier Study for The Death of Sardanapalus (fig. 105), Wild Horse Felled by a Tiger (cat. 57) (D-S 77),
paintings The Seine (Sequana) and The 237, 238 42, 44, 283
Rhone (Rhodanus) (fig. 38), 102, 103, Study of an Oak Tree (fig. 107), 242, 243 Wild Horse Felled by a Tiger (cat. 58), 42, 44, 283
110–11, 113, 117, 121 Study of an Oak Tree (fig. 108), 242, 243 Woman with a Parrot (cat. 33) (J 9), 73, 91,
Scene from the War between the Turks and the Study of an Oriental Vest (cat. 15), 53, 55, 277 92, 280
Greeks (J 115), 36 Study of a Woman Viewed from Behind (fig. 84) Women of Algiers in Their Apartment (cat. 83)
Scenes from the Massacres at Chios (fig. 5) (J 105), (D-S 21), 201, 201, 202 (J 356), 78, 79, 87, 90–91, 93, 94, 95–96,
13, 14, 18–19, 20–21, 22, 25, 28, 29–31, 34, 57, Study of Babouches (cat. 12) (J 26), 53, 56, 277 99, 105, 113, 156, 255, 287
61, 71, 74, 76, 107, 110, 126, 129, 133, 166, Study of Greek Costumes (cat. 16), 53, 54, 277 Women of Algiers in Their Apartment (fig. 32)
189, 230, 231, 249, 251, 255, 272n17, 273n34 Study of the Sea (cat. 126), 185, 185, 294 (J 382), 90–91, 90, 92, 96, 100, 137, 158,
The Sea at Dieppe (cat. 128) (J 489), 186, 186, The Sultan of Morocco, sketch (fig. 27) (J 369), 166, 257
212, 294 76, 77 Young Tiger Playing with Its Mother (Study of Two
The Sea at Dieppe (cat. 132), 186, 187, 295 The Sultan of Morocco and His Entourage (cat. 138) Tigers) (cat. 67) (J 59), 37, 42, 42, 47, 284
(J 401), 77, 100, 109, 110, 296 Young Turk Stroking His Horse (J 38), 36

310 DELACROIX
 Young Woman Attacked by a Tiger (Indian Woman Forget, Joséphine de, 137 Napoleon on the Battlefield of Eylau, February 9,
Bitten by a Tiger) (fig. 60) (J 201), 154, 154 Fould, Achille, 106 1807 (fig. 23), 57, 59
Delacroix, Ferdinand Victor Eugène. See Delacroix, Fould, Benoît, 221 Napoleon Visiting the Plague Victims of Jaffa, 19, 31,
Eugène French Renaissance, 111, 138 53, 57, 250
Delacroix, Henri (brother), 4 French Revolution, 9, 10, 29, 30, 57, 63, 74 Study for Hercules and Diomedes (fig. 113), 250, 250
Delacroix, Victoire Oeben (mother), 1, 4, 41, French school, 2, 4, 164, 166, 170 Grzymala, comte, 193
204, 236 Fromentin, Eugène, 270nn45-47 Guérin, Pierre Narcisse, 4–5, 23, 104, 225, 233,
Delaroche, Paul, 164, 167, 169, 217 Gazelle Hunt in the Hodna, Algeria (fig. 71), 245–49, 251–52, 253, 273nn6, 10, 26, 28
Children of Edward, 269n36 178, 178 Clytemnestra Hesitating before Killing the Sleeping
Delécluze, Etienne Jean, 1, 11, 13, 53, 116, 166, Souvenir of Algeria, 178 Agamemnon (fig. 112), 247–48, 249, 250, 253
199, 273n27 A Summer in the Sahara, 178 The Death of Priam, or The Last Night of Troy
dell’Abate, Niccolò, 111 A Year in the Sahel, 178 (fig. 115), 252–53, 252
Demidoff, Anatole, 203 The Return of Marcus Sextus, 5, 8, 248
Denis, Maurice, 265 G Studies for the Head of Aegisthus (fig. 111), 248
Denon, Dominique Vivant, 57 Galerie Lebrun, Exposition au Profit des Grecs, 1826, Guichard, Joseph, 251
Devéria, Achille, 158 31, 34, 36, 60, 71 Guillemardet, Félix, 8, 10, 246
Devéria, Eugène, 164, 251 Garrick, David, 269n99
Diaz de la Peña, Narcisse-Virgile, 87, 178, 202–3, Gatteaux, Jacques Edouard, 255, 256 H
271n106 Gautier, Théophile, 50, 63, 96, 97, 102, 111, 113, 139, Haro, Etienne François, 154
Diodorus Siculus, 48 150, 166, 167, 189, 222, 269n40 Haussmann, Georges-Eugène, 240, 256
Disdéri, André-Adolphe-Eugène Geloës d’Elsloo, Théodore de, comte, 130 Hayter, John, 116
View of the room devoted to works by Jean Gérard, François, 4, 8, 251, 258 Heem, Jan Davidsz. de, 140
Auguste Dominique Ingres, Exposition Belisarius, 251 Heim, François Joseph, 270n12
Universelle des Beaux-Arts, 1855 (fig. 117), Horses Frightened by the Surf (fig. 114), 251, 251 Christ on the Lake of Genesareth (fig. 80), 193, 193
257, 258 Sea Study, 251 Hesiod, 97
View of the Salon Carré, including works by Gericault, Théodore, 4, 5, 11, 17, 28, 97, 99, 104, 201, Hiffernan, Joanna, 264–65
Delacroix, Exposition Universelle des 233, 246, 248, 251, 273n19 Hobbema, Meindert, 177
Beaux-Arts, 1855 (fig. 118), 257, 259 Eugène Delacroix, Presumed Portrait (fig. 109), Homer, 9, 245
Domenichino, 199, 216 247, 247, 273n15 Huet, Paul, 140, 178, 261
d’Orléans, Ferdinand Philippe, crown prince, 139 Mameluck of the Imperial Guard Defending a Breakers at Granville Point, 195
Duban, Félix, 137–38, 144 Wounded Trumpeter from a Cossack (fig. 102), Flood at Saint-Cloud, 261
Duchâtel, comte, 106 233, 233 Hugo, Victor, 8, 261, 274n36
Ducis, Jean François, 158, 269n98 Officer of the Chasseurs Commanding a Charge, 5 Orientales, 196
Dumas, Alexandre, 41, 162, 169, 241, 274n16 Raft of the Medusa, 8, 10, 18, 50, 189, 190, 247, Hunt, William Holman, Our English Coasts 1852
Dupré, Jules, 177, 178 249, 251 (Strayed Sheep) (fig. 120), 261, 261
Duranty, Edmond, 265 Study after Veronese (detail from The Marriage at Hurel, Jules, 155
Du Sommerard, Alexandre, 36 Cana) (fig. 99), 226, 227 Huyghe, René, 201
Dutilleux, Constant, 141, 154 Wounded Cuirassier (fig. 14), 30, 31
Girardet, Karl, 199 I
E Girodet, Anne Louis, 4, 76, 104, 245, 251 Ingres, Jean Auguste Dominique, 12, 121, 152–53,
Ecole des Beaux-Arts, 5, 167, 246, 273n8 Gisors, Alphonse de, 138, 237 164, 165, 166, 167, 169, 248, 257, 259,
Elsheimer, Adam, 215, 272n146 Gobelins, 96, 103, 140 269n41, 270n12
Esbens, E., after Narcisse-Virgile Diaz de la Peña, Godde, Etienne Hippolyte, 138 Apotheosis of Homer, 217, 259
Bathers (fig. 87), 202, 203 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 63 Grande Odalisque (fig. 33), 91, 92, 156
exoticism, 79, 87, 205 Faust, 9, 63, 100, 130, 152, 158, 160, 189 The Turkish Bath, 221
Exposition au Profit des Grecs, Galerie Lebrun, 1826, Gogh, Vincent van, 136, 235 Institut de France, 164, 166, 167, 177, 273n8
31, 34, 36, 60, 71 Gothic art, 138
Exposition Universelle of 1855, 77, 106, 130, 143, 146, Goya, Francisco de, 265 J
150, 164, 166, 167, 169, 221, 256–59, 260, Granet, François Marius, 4 Jacquand, Claudius, 87
262, 265 Great Exhibition of 1851, 166, 256, 274n9 Jal, Auguste, 29, 60
Greek War of Independence, 8, 15–16, 230 Johnson, Lee, 146, 189, 270n64, 271n73
F Grisi, Giulia, 116 Joly, Jules de, 138
Fantin-Latour, Henri, Homage to Delacroix, 265 Gros, Antoine Jean, 4, 5, 8, 11, 12, 13, 18, 76, 237, 245, Jordaens, Jacob, 193
Ferri, Domenico, 269n52 249–51, 253, 258, 273n10 July Monarchy, 76, 105, 177, 253, 256
Fielding, Thales, 37, 38, 179, 277 Bonaparte on the Bridge at Arcole, 74 July Revolution of 1830, 73–74, 103, 104, 256
Flandrin, Hippolyte, 152 David Playing the Harp for King Saul, 250 Jussieu, Adrien de, 241
Flemish Primitives, 121, 152, 201 Embarkation of Marie-Thérèse, Duchess of
Forbin, Auguste de, comte, 2, 4, 5, 8, 18 Angoulême, at Pauillac, 53

Index 311
K Meyer, Henri Horace, 160 Extreme Unction, 120
Kean, Edmund, 158 Michelangelo, 12, 50, 99, 111, 113, 116, 152, 221, Inspiration of the Poet, 218
Kemble, Charles, 158, 163, 269n102 235, 236 Plague at Ashdod, 230, 272n20
Khnopff, Fernand, 91 Last Judgment, 10–11, 215 primitivism, 53, 193, 273n27
Millet, Jean-François, 177, 197, 198 Prix de Rome, 5, 177, 246, 250, 252
L Milton, John, 231 Pron, Louise Rossignol de, 18
La Caze, Louis, 203 Monet, Claude, 169 Prud’hon, Pierre Paul, 18, 104, 107, 145, 245, 268n21
La Fontaine, Jean de, 269n89 Monnoyer, Jean-Baptiste, 139–40, 141, 151, 269n64 Christ on the Cross, 126, 269n41
Lami, Eugène, 138 Montaigne, Michel de, 239
Lancret, Nicolas, 203 Mornay, Charles de, comte, 77 Q
Landon, Charles Paul, 19, 24, 34, 48 Morny, Auguste de, duc, 178, 203, 271n92 Quai, Maurice, 249
landscape painting, and Delacroix, 177–79, 197–98 Motherwell, Robert, 239
Laocoön, 117 Moulay Abd-er-Rahman, Sultan of Morocco, 77 R
Larivière, Charles Philippe, 252 Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus, 152 Rabelais, François, 160
Lassalle, Emile, 154 Musée du Luxembourg, 1, 2, 5, 8, 16, 76, 77, 104, Racine, 8, 245
Lassalle-Bordes, Gustave, 121 105, 106, 107, 228, 236 Raimondi, Marcantonio, after Raphael, 230
Laurens, Jules, 269n50 Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle, 47 The Virgin Weeping over the Body of the Dead Christ,
Lawrence, Thomas, 37, 38 Musset, Alfred de, 4, 160 71, 73
Le Brun, Charles, 108, 138, 258, 271n115 Rambuteau, comte de, 121
Night, 145 N Raphael, 2, 97, 121, 152–53, 265
Triumph of the Waters (Neptune and Amphitrite), 145 Nanteuil, Célestin, 136 Expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise, 231
Lebrun, Galerie, Exposition au Profit des Grecs, Napoleon I (r. 1804–1814/15), 4, 19, 31, 103, 221, 256 Plague at Phrygia, 230
1826, 31, 34, 36, 60, 71 Napoleon III (r. 1852–70), 77, 137, 166, 256 Realism, 78, 165, 197–98, 203–4, 214
Legion of Honor, 167 Navez, François Joseph, 34 Redon, Odilon, 265
Lehmann, Henri, 152 neo-Baroque, 100 Redouté, Pierre Joseph, 139
Lejeune, Louis François, 31 Neoclassicism, 8, 9, 12, 19, 24, 29, 77, 110, 138, 214 Reign of Terror, 29
Leleux, Adolphe-Pierre, 197 Nieuwerkerke, Emilien de, 256 Rembrandt (Rembrandt van Rijn), 90, 97, 99, 100,
Lenormant, Charles, 251 129, 156, 179, 193, 215, 216, 222
Leonardo da Vinci, 235 O The Great Lion Hunt, 150
Lethière, Guillaume Guillon, 251, 274n40 Oeben, Jean François, 4 The Rape of Ganymede (fig. 43), 116, 117
Death of Virginia, 251, 253 Oppenord, Gilles Marie, 138 Retzsch, Moritz, 63, 158, 270n107
Le Tourneur, Pierre, 160 Orientalism, 50, 53, 71, 79, 87, 91 Revolution of 1848, 76, 97, 121, 178, 198, 242, 256
Lewis, Matthew Gregory, Monk, 8–9 Ossian, 245 Reynolds, Joshua, 235, 242
Lichtenstein, Sara, 201 Ovid, 97, 153, 199, 220 Ribera, Jusepe de, 129, 151
Lorrain, Claude, 265 Ricourt, Achille, 160, 163
Louis, duc de Nemours, 139 P Riesener, Félicité Longrois, 4, 7, 213, 288
Louis I, duc d’Orléans, 231 Palatiano, Demetrius de, 37, 40, 40, 41, 163, 279 Riesener, Henri François, 4, 107, 246
Louis XIV (r. 1643-1715), 108, 138, 141 Pasta, Giuditta, 116 Riesener, Léon, 4, 6, 202, 288
Louis XV (r. 1715–74), 138 Pater, Jean Baptiste, 203 Rigny, Henri de, 47
Louis XVI (r. 1774–92), 267n12 Penley, Samson, 158, 269n99 Ris, Louis Clément de, 164, 166, 167
Louis XVII (r. 1793–95), 246 Pereire, Emile, 154 Rivet, Charles, 53
Louis XVIII (r. 1814–24), 2, 18, 251 Perrier, Charles, 166, 168 Robaut, Alfred, 22
Louis-Philippe (r. 1830–48), 18, 73–74, 76, 97, 129, Perugino, Pietro, Jesus Handing the Keys to Saint Robert, Emilie, 22
137, 197, 253, 256, 269n35 Peter, 177 Robert, Louis Léopold, 34
Petroz, Pierre, 151 Robert-Fleury, Joseph-Nicolas, 11
M Philippe d’Orléans, 138 Romanticism, 8, 9, 12, 63, 70, 100, 151, 154, 160, 164,
Mallet, 199 Picot, François-Edouard, 273n26 165, 167, 170, 189, 237, 245, 251–52, 253,
Manet, Edouard, 162, 265 pictorial realism, and Delacroix, 198 265, 273nn3, 27
Mannerism, 111, 124, 168, 190 picturesqueness, and Delacroix, 70, 79, 80, 198, 213 Romieu, Auguste, 261, 274n35
Mantz, Paul, 150–51, 164, 167–68, 173, 177, 216 Pierret, Jean-Baptiste, 9–10, 79, 160 Rossini, Gioachino, 116, 269n97
Marchoux, Hermance, comtesse de Caen, 199 Pilon, Germain, Monument to the Heart of Rosso Fiorentino, 111
Marck, William de la, 62 Henri II, 111 Pietà (fig. 50), 121, 124, 125
Maximilian I, elector of Bavaria, 150 Piranesi, Giovanni Battista, 196 Rothschild, James de, 139
Mayr, Simon, 116 Piron, Achille, 4, 10, 246 Rousseau, Jean, 168, 173
Medwin, Thomas, 151–52 Planche, Gustave, 97, 99, 102, 111, 113, 160, 166 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 206, 220
Mély-Janin, Marie, 19 Poe, Edgar Allan, 241 Rousseau, Théodore, 137, 177, 178
Mercey, Frédéric de, 257 Poussin, Nicolas, 2, 97, 216 The Avenue of Chestnut Trees, 270n42
Meurice, Paul, 162 Death of Germanicus, 100 Rouvière, Philibert, 162, 163

312 DELACROIX
Royer-Collard, Hippolyte, 76 Salon of 1845, 99–100, 107, 117, 166, 257, 264 Thiers, Adolphe, 1, 4, 11, 12, 19, 77, 106, 110
Rubens, Peter Paul, 12, 18, 26, 50, 97, 100, 108, 116, Salon of 1846, 100, 166, 232 Thoré, Théophile, 106
129, 151, 173, 179, 196, 215, 216, 221, 250, Salon of 1847, 100, 136 Titian, 97, 99, 179, 215, 216, 265
257, 265, 271n73 Salon of 1848, 100, 130, 137, 166 Man with a Glove, 160
Abduction of the Daughters of Leucippus (fig. 101), Salon of 1849, 100, 102, 139, 140–41, 158, 166, 257 Tressan, comte de, 199
102, 233, 233, 272n34 Salon of 1852, 178 Troyon, Constant, 177
Battle of Ivry, 108 Salon of 1853, 130, 195, 265 Tuby, Jean-Baptiste, 145
The Battle of the Amazons, 99, 102 Salon of 1857, 154, 178
Christ at the Column (The Flagellation), 102, 134 Salon of 1859, 162, 167–70, 172–73, 176, 177, 178, U
Christ Calming the Sea (fig. 79), 102, 193, 193 214, 216, 221–22 ut pictura poesis ideology, 79
Christ on the Cross, 102, 121 Sand, George, 140, 178, 181, 206–7, 240, 256
Christ on the Straw, 135 Sarto, Andrea del (Andrea d’Agnolo), Charity V
The Entombment of Christ, 102, 126 (fig. 42), 116, 116 Van Dyck, Anthony, 199, 231
Hero and Leander, 11 Scheffer, Arnold, 10 Saint Martin Dividing His Cloak, 201
Hippopotamus and Crocodile Hunt (fig. 59), 102, Scheffer, Ary, 246, 247, 248, 252 Van Loo, Charles Amédée, Sultan Served by Her
146, 150 Abel Singing a Hymn of Praise, 5 Eunuchs, 203
Judgment of Paris, 201, 271n96 Saint Thomas Aquinas Preaching His Confidence Varcollier, Michel-Augustin, 121
Lamentation, 113 in God during a Tempest, 193 Vau, Louis le, 138
The Lion Hunt, 102, 150 Souliot Women, 29 Velázquez, Diego, 11, 236, 265
The Raising of the Cross, 152 School of Fontainebleau, 111, 151 Venus de Milo, 15
The Landing of Maria de Medici at Marseilles on Schwiter, Louis Auguste, 36, 37, 38, 38, 40, 41–42, Venus Pudica, 203
November 3, 1600, (fig. 4), 11, 12, 86 47, 279–80 Vernet, Horace, 164, 251, 257, 270n12
Ruisdael, Jacob van, 177 Scott, Walter, 41, 61, 97, 100, 154, 167, 212, 221, 225 Massacre of the Mamelukes in Cairo in 1811, 29–30
Ivanhoe, 228–29, 232 Verninac, Charles de, 15, 74, 205
S Woodstock, 231 Verninac, Henriette de (sister), 4, 5, 8, 204, 205,
Sainte-Hilaire, Geoffroy, 47 Second Republic, 103, 256 221, 225
Saint-Evre, Gillot, 251 Shakespeare, William, 63, 69, 97, 99, 100, 117, 158, Véron, Louis-Désiré, 245–46, 249
Saint-Victor, Paul de, 91, 164, 168–69, 177 160, 162–63, 167, 221, 245, 253 Veronese, Paolo, 97, 99, 111, 151, 215–16, 233
Salon, 4, 5, 97, 99, 103, 104, 106, 108, 110, 113, Sigalon, Xavier, 164 The Marriage at Cana (fig. 98), 225, 226,
164, 167, 178 Signac, Paul, 93, 165 226, 228
Salon of 1795, 251 Silvestre, Théophile, 34, 164, 245, 258, 271n112, Perseus Delivering Andromeda, 196
Salon of 1799, 5 274n18 Susanna [and the Elders], 152
Salon of 1808, 57 Sleeping Ariadne, 91 Wedding at Cana, 107
Salon of 1812, 5 Soane, George, 63 Vieillard, Pierre Ange, 267n69
Salon of 1814, 31 Sosthènes, Louis François, vicomte de La Vien, Joseph Marie, 16
Salon of 1817, 248 Rochefoucauld, 18, 103 Villot, Frédéric, 34, 107, 137, 140, 203, 217–18
Salon of 1819, 10, 18, 190, 247 Soulier, Charles-Louis-Raymond, 5, 8, 18, 37–38, Portrait of Eugène Delacroix (after a Self-Portrait
Salon of 1822, 1, 4, 5, 8, 10, 11, 19, 104, 166, 236, 225, 256 Drawing) (fig. 1), 1
246, 250, 255, 257, 258 Soutman, Pieter, 150 Virgil, 9, 10, 11, 228, 245
Salon of 1824, 13, 15, 17, 18, 19, 25, 29–31, 34, 37, Souty, P., 270n42 Vitet, Ludovic, 34, 50, 61
166, 193, 251, 252, 267n69 Stapfer, Albert, 63 Vivant Denon, Dominique, 57
Salon of 1827–28, 13, 34, 38, 48, 57, 71, 103, 104, Stendhal, 19 Vorsterman, Lucas, 11
137, 166, 231, 251, 252, 257 Stevens, Mathilde, 216 Voutier, Olivier, 15, 230
Salon of 1831, 37, 42, 73, 77, 105, 166, 251, 256, 269n36 Strabo, 220
Salon of 1833, 99 Symbolists, 91, 133, 194 W
Salon of 1834, 79, 91, 99, 166 Wagner, Richard, 241
Salon of 1835, 121, 136, 160, 166, 230, 231 T Wallace, William, 203
Salon of 1836, 97, 113, 160 Taine, Hippolyte, 47 Watteau, Antoine, 179, 199, 203, 271nn92, 115
Salon of 1837, 99 Talma, François Joseph, 5, 158 Rendez-vous de chasse, 271n92
Salon of 1838, 96, 97, 99, 113, 166 Tasso, Torquato, 97 Whistler, James Abbott McNeill, 265
Salon of 1839, 99, 117, 160, 166 Jérusalem délivrée, 199, 201, 271n103 Wilson, Daniel, 107
Salon of 1840, 99, 100, 106, 166 Taylor, Baron, 164 workers’ uprising of June 1848, 137
Salon of 1841, 99, 100, 166, 188 Terry, Daniel, 63
Salon of 1844, 120 Thénot, Jean-Pierre, 50

Index 313
 Photography Credits

Courtesy of the Ackland Art Museum: cat. 95 Courtesy of Minneapolis Institute of Arts/Bridgeman Images: © RMN-Grand Palais / Art Resource, NY. Photo: Michèle
Courtesy of Albertina, Vienna: fig. 77 figs. 34, 90 Bellot: fig. 57
Albright-Knox Art Gallery / Art Resource, NY: cat. 77 Courtesy of Morgan Library & Museum: cats. 75, 116, 119 © RMN-Grand Palais / Art Resource, NY. Photo: Jean-Gilles
Allen Phillips\Wadsworth Atheneum: fig. 85 © Jean-Marc Moser / COARC / Roger-Viollet: cat. 17 Berizzi: cats. 12, 141, fig. 88
Courtesy of Art Cuéllar-Nathan: cats. 32, 115 © Musées d’Angers: fig. 111 © RMN-Grand Palais / Art Resource, NY. Photo: Gerard Blot:
© Artcurial – Paris: fig. 113 © Musées d’Angers, P. David: fig. 115 cats. 92, 98, figs. 14, 55, 71, 96
The Art Institute of Chicago / Art Resource, NY: cats. 27, 61, Courtesy of Musée des Beaux-Arts d’Arras and the Louvre: © RMN-Grand Palais / Art Resource, NY. Photo: Angèle
fig. 58 cat. 130 Dequier: cat. 96, figs. 20, 33, 98
© Assemblée Nationale-2018: figs. 38–39, 97 © Musée des Beaux-Arts de Dijon/Michel Bourquin: fig. 27 © RMN-Grand Paiais / Art Resource, NY Photo: Adrien
Courtesy Bibliothèque de l’Institut National d’Histoire de l’Art: Courtesy of Musée des Beaux-Arts de Tours, photo: Dominique Didierjean; cat. 31
figs. 103–4, 106 Couineau: cat. 107 © RMN-Grand Palais / Art Resource, NY. Photo: Philippe
Courtesy of Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris: figs. 1, 87, Courtesy Musée des Beaux-arts, Orléans: cat. 7 Fuzeau: cats. 88, 101, 128, figs. 22, 66, 75, 83
117–18 Image courtesy of Musée des Beaux-Arts Vannes: cat. 85 © RMN-Grand Palais / Art Resource, NY. Photo: Thierry Le
bpk Bildagentur / Alte Pinakothek, Bayerische Staatsgemälde- © Musée des Beaux-Arts, ville de Bordeaux: cats. 26, 70, 135 Mage: figs. 3, 28
sammlungen, Munich / Art Resource, NY: fig. 101 Musée des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Reims © Photo: C. © RMN-Grand Palais / Art Resource, NY. Photo: Hervé
bpk Bildagentnr / Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Alte Devleeschauwer: fig. 62 Lewandowski: figs. 4, 8
Pinakothek / Art Resource, NY: fig. 59 © Musée du Louvre, Dist. RMN-Grand Palais / Philippe Fuzeau © RMN-Grand Palais / Art Resource, NY. Photo: Stéphane
bpk Bildagentur / Berlin / Elke Estel / Hans-Peter Klut / Art / Art Resource, NY: fig. 26 Maréchalle: cats. 91, 94, figs. 17, 31
Resource, NY: fig. 79 © Musée Fabre de Montpellier Méditerranée Métropole © RMN-Grand Palais / Art Resource, NY. Photo: Stéphane
bpk Bildagentur / Hans-Peter Klut / Art Resource, NY: fig. 43 - photograph by Frédéric Jaulmes: cats. 10, 78, 114, figs. 32, 86 Marechalle / Adrien Didierjean: fig. 5
bpk Bildagentur / Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen, Berlin, Musées municipaux de Rochefort / © Studio Sebert: fig. 12 © RMN-Grand Palais / Art Resource, NY. Photo: Rene-Gabriel
Germany / Jörg P. Anders / Art Resource, NY: cat. 2 © Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid: cat. 24 Ojeda: cats. 4, 14, figs. 50, 72, 78
bpk Bildagentur / Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe / Annette Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam / Creditline © RMN-Grand Palais / Art Resource, NY. Photo: Olivier
Fischer/Heike Kohler / Art Resource, NY: cat. 140 photographer: Studio Tromp, Rotterdam: cat. 102 Ouadah: fig. 53
bpk Bildagentur / Staatsgalerie Stuttgart / Art Resource, NY: © 2018 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston: cat. 106 © RMN-Grand Palais / Art Resource, NY. Photo: Jacques
fig. 60 Courtesy of Museum of Fine Arts, Houston/Bridgeman Images: Quecq d’Henripret: fig. 41
© Gérard Blot /Réunion des Musées Métropolitains Rouen cat. 145 © RMN-Grand Palais / Art Resource, NY. Photo: Tony Querrec:
Normandie: figs. 35, 49 © Museum Folkwang Essen – ARTOTHEK: fig. 99 cats. 34, 64, fig. 42
Dominic Büttner, Zürich: fig. 15 Courtesy Nancy, musée des beaux-arts © P. Mignot: cat. 69 © RMN-Grand Palais / Art Resource, NY. Photo: Mathieu
© Patrick Cadet / Centre des monuments nationaux: fig. 76 © Nasjonalmuseet: cat. 124 Rabeau: fig. 9, cat. 13
© COARC / Roger-Viollet: fig. 70 Courtesy Nathan Fine Art (Zürich / Potsdam): cat. 8 © RMN-Grand Palais / Art Resource, NY. Photo: Franck Raux:
Courtesy of Collection particulière / photo Thomas Agnews & © The National Gallery, London: cats. 30, 142, fig. 52 cats. 67, 83, 134, 144, figs. 19, 61, 80, 105
Son: fig. 114 © National Gallery in Prague 2018: cat. 25 © RMN-Grand Palais / Art Resource, NY. Photo: Franck Raux /
Courtesy of Conseil départemental de l’Ain / J. Alves: cat. 90 Courtesy of National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh: fig. 54 Rene-Gabriel Ojeda: cat. 111, figs. 11, 36
© Christophe Fouin/COARC/Roger-Viollet: fig. 48 Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington.: fig. 92 © RMN-Grand Palais / Art Resource, NY. Photo: Benoit
Courtesy of galerie Jean-Luc Baroni: fig. 109 © Nationalmuseum: cat. 136, fig. 68 Touchard: fig. 112
Courtesy of Patrick Goetelen: cat. 3 NGC: cat. 112, fig. 116 © RMN-Grand Palais / Art Resource, NY. Photo: Michel
Houghton Library, Harvard University: cats. 37, 44, 46 NMWA / DNPartcom: fig. 89 Urtado: cat. 93, figs. 6, 7, 21, 29, 30, 44–47, 63, 73–74, 82,
Image © Metropolitan Museum of Art: cats. 1, 6, 9, 19–21, 29, Courtesy Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen, photo: Ole 107–8, 122
57– 60, 62–63, 65–66, 76, 80, 82, 84, 108, 117, 120–21, Haupt: fig. 24 © Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium (RMFAB), Brussels:
132–33, 137, figs. 16, 64–65, 100, 102, 123 © Paris, Les Arts Décoratifs / Jean Tholance: cat. 28 cat. 123
Image © Metropolitan Museum of Art, photo by Erica Allen: Courtesy of Pérez Simón Collection, Mexico © Arturo Piera: Scala / Art Resource, NY: fig. 56
cats. 35, 72, 74 cat. 23 Städel Museum – ARTOTHEK: cat. 86
Image © Metropolitan Museum of Art, photo by Hyla Skopitz: © Petit Palais / Roger-Viollet: cats. 38–43, 45, 47, 48–56, 87, Städel Museum – U. Edelmann – ARTOTHEK: cat. 79
cats. 15, 126 fig. 67 Studio Tromp, Rotterdam: fig. 81
Image © Metropolitan Museum of Art, photo by Juan Trujillo: Courtesy Philadelphia Museum of Art: cats. 71, 104, 110 Courtesy of Szépművészeti Museum, Budapest: figs. 18, 93
cats. 84, 89, 100, 105, 109, 129, 138 Courtesy of The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.: fig. 91 © Tate, London 2017: fig. 120
Imaging Department © President and Fellows of Harvard Polistena, 2008, p. 171. Image © Metropolitan Museum of Art, Courtesy of Toledo Museum of Art: fig. 121
College: cats. 11, 118 photo by Heather Johnson: fig. 40 Toulouse, Musée des Augustins. Photo Daniel Martin: fig. 37
Courtesy of Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, Texas: cat. 139 Courtesy of the Portland Art Museum, Oregon: cat. 99 Courtesy of Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam: cat. 122
© Kunsthalle Bremen – Lars Lohrisch – ARTOTHEK: cat. 113, Private Collection Photo © Christie’s Images/Bridgeman © Viking Company: cat. 18
fig. 51 Images: fig. 95 Von der Heydt-Museum Wuppertal / Photo: AntjeZeis-Loi,
Kunstmuseum Basel, Martin P. Bühler: cats. 5, 22 Courtesy of Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam: cat. 125 Medienzentrum Wuppertal: fig. 94
Photograph by Jean-François Le Sénéchal: fig. 110 © RMN-Grand Palais / Art Resource, NY: fig. 2 © The Wallace Collection: fig. 25
© Lyon MBA – Photo Alain Basset: cat. 33 © RMN-Grand Paiais / Art Resource, NY. Photo: Daniel Courtesy of The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore: cats. 103,
The Mesdag Collection, The Hague: fig. 13 Arnaudet: fig. 23 127, 131
© Emmanuel Michot / COARC / Roger-Viollet: fig. 69 © RMN-Grand Palais / Art Resource, NY. Photo: Martine Katherine Wetzel © Virginia Museum of Fine Arts: cat. 143
Beck-Coppola: cat. 68

314 DELACROIX
 Lowres TK
Lowres TK

Delacroix

Delacroix
Delacroix
Sébastien Allard is chief curator and director of the
Department of Paintings, Musée du Louvre, Paris.

Côme Fabre is curator of nineteenth-­century French paintings, Sébastien Allard and Côme Fabre
Department of Paintings, Musée du Louvre, Paris.
with contributions by Dominique de Font-Réaulx,
Dominique de Font-­Réaulx is director of the Musée National Michèle Hannoosh, Mehdi Korchane, and Asher Miller
Eugène-­Delacroix, Paris.

Michèle Hannoosh is professor of French, University of

Eugène Delacroix (1798–1863) was one of the towering
Michigan, Ann Arbor.
­figures to emerge in France in the wake of Napoleon. No
Mehdi Korchane is an independent scholar. other artist of the nineteenth century balanced a reverence
for the past with such a strong ambition and spirit of innova­
Asher Miller is associate curator, Department of European
tion. Distinguishing himself from many other talented young
Paintings, The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
artists in Paris, he gained renown in the 1820s for his novel
subject matter, theatrical sense of composition, vibrant palette,
and vigorous painterly technique. His vast production—
including some eight hundred paintings, prints in a variety
of media, and thousands of drawings and pages of writing—
Jacket illustrations: front, detail, Women of Algiers in Their Apartment, won the admira­tion of countless writers and artists, including
1834, cat. 83; back, detail, Self-­Portrait in a Green Vest, ca. 1837, cat. 93 Charles Baudelaire, Paul Cézanne, and Pablo Picasso.
This comprehensive monograph closely examines the
Jacket design by Miko McGinty and Rita Jules full breadth of Delacroix’s career, including his engagement
with the work of his predecessors, his fascina­tion with the
natural world, his interest in Lord Byron and the Greek War
of Independence, and the profound influence of his voyage to
North Africa in 1832. It brings to life his relationships with his
contemporaries, ranging from the painters Pierre Narcisse
Guérin and Antoine Jean Gros to Gustave Courbet, as well as
his exploration of literary, historical, and biblical themes, his
writing in personal journals, and his triumphant exhibition at
the Exposition Universelle of 1855. Richly illustrated and
encompassing the entire range and diversity of his art, from
The Metropolitan Museum of Art grand paintings to intimate drawings, Delacroix illuminates
1000 Fifth Avenue how this intrepid figure changed the course of European
New York, New York 10028 painting by heeding “a call for the liberty of art.”
metmuseum.org

Distributed by Yale University Press,

New Haven and London
yalebooks.com/art 328 pages; 288 illustrations; bibliography; index
yalebooks.co.uk ISBN 978-1-58839-651-8

PRINTED IN ITALY

PRINTED IN ITALY
 Lowres TK
Lowres TK

Delacroix

Delacroix
Delacroix
Sébastien Allard is chief curator and director of the
Department of Paintings, Musée du Louvre, Paris.

Côme Fabre is curator of nineteenth-­century French paintings, Sébastien Allard and Côme Fabre
Department of Paintings, Musée du Louvre, Paris.
with contributions by Dominique de Font-Réaulx,
Dominique de Font-­Réaulx is director of the Musée National Michèle Hannoosh, Mehdi Korchane, and Asher Miller
Eugène-­Delacroix, Paris.

Michèle Hannoosh is professor of French, University of

Eugène Delacroix (1798–1863) was one of the towering
Michigan, Ann Arbor.
­figures to emerge in France in the wake of Napoleon. No
Mehdi Korchane is an independent scholar. other artist of the nineteenth century balanced a reverence
for the past with such a strong ambition and spirit of innova­
Asher Miller is associate curator, Department of European
tion. Distinguishing himself from many other talented young
Paintings, The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
artists in Paris, he gained renown in the 1820s for his novel
subject matter, theatrical sense of composition, vibrant palette,
and vigorous painterly technique. His vast production—
including some eight hundred paintings, prints in a variety
of media, and thousands of drawings and pages of writing—
Jacket illustrations: front, detail, Women of Algiers in Their Apartment, won the admira­tion of countless writers and artists, including
1834, cat. 83; back, detail, Self-­Portrait in a Green Vest, ca. 1837, cat. 93 Charles Baudelaire, Paul Cézanne, and Pablo Picasso.
This comprehensive monograph closely examines the
Jacket design by Miko McGinty and Rita Jules full breadth of Delacroix’s career, including his engagement
with the work of his predecessors, his fascina­tion with the
natural world, his interest in Lord Byron and the Greek War
of Independence, and the profound influence of his voyage to
North Africa in 1832. It brings to life his relationships with his
contemporaries, ranging from the painters Pierre Narcisse
Guérin and Antoine Jean Gros to Gustave Courbet, as well as
his exploration of literary, historical, and biblical themes, his
writing in personal journals, and his triumphant exhibition at
the Exposition Universelle of 1855. Richly illustrated and
encompassing the entire range and diversity of his art, from
The Metropolitan Museum of Art grand paintings to intimate drawings, Delacroix illuminates
1000 Fifth Avenue how this intrepid figure changed the course of European
New York, New York 10028 painting by heeding “a call for the liberty of art.”
metmuseum.org

Distributed by Yale University Press,

New Haven and London
yalebooks.com/art 328 pages; 288 illustrations; bibliography; index
yalebooks.co.uk ISBN 978-1-58839-651-8

PRINTED IN ITALY

PRINTED IN ITALY