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Lot Essay
Beginning in the late 1820s, Delacroix's interest in exotic animals was fueled by visits to the Jardin des Plantes and Natural History Museum in Paris. He would observe the animals' movements and anatomy and then work up his firsthand sketches into more elaborate and inventive compositions.
The inspiration to translate these animal studies into more dramatic fare came from some of his artistic predecessors such as Peter Paul Rubens and George Stubbs as well as his contemporary, Théodore Géricault. The sheer brutality of the voracious lion and the heightened color palette of Delacroix's watercolor derive from Rubens' lion hunt compositions. Stubbs' A Lion Attacking A Horse (fig. 1) which was disseminated in engravings as well--was also clearly an influence upon Delacroix. Géricault also frequently depicted animals in combat and in both his powerful circa 1818-1820 painting of lions in a mountainous landscape and 1823 lithograph of a horse being devoured by a lion, the compositional connection to Delacroix's watercolor is undeniable (figs. 2 and 3).
The present drawing focuses on the unforgiving savagery of the two beasts locked in combat. It embodies the Romantic concept of nature and wild animals and the stark, broadly painted background heightens the drama of the lion's dominance. Delacroix's composition is an amalgam of real life observation, Romantic imagination, and the influence of earlier artists.
There is an oil on canvas version of this composition in the Gezira Museum, Cairo (fig. 4). The painting, also dating from circa 1844, is slightly more cropped than the present watercolor. There are two drawings in the Louvre, one a watercolor, the other a tracing in black chalk of the same composition. The watercolor and the present drawing were both formerly in the collection of Comte d'Aquila whose collection was sold in Paris in 1868. Serullaz also notes a sketch of this subject in the artist's posthumous sale (lot 149). The tracing was probably used (in reverse) for a lithograph published in 1844 (Delteil 126) by Les Artistes Contemporains, Paris.
(fig. 1) George Stubbs, A Lion Attacking A Horse, 1762. Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection, New Haven.
(fig. 2) Jean-Louis Théodore Géricault, Lions dans un paysage montagneux, circa 1818-1820. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
(fig. 3) Jean-Louis Théodore Géricault, Cheval dévoré par un lion, 1823, The Cleveland Museum of Art.
(fig. 4) Ferdinand-Victor-Eugène Delacroix, Lion dévorant un cheval, 1844. Gezira Museum, Cairo.
The inspiration to translate these animal studies into more dramatic fare came from some of his artistic predecessors such as Peter Paul Rubens and George Stubbs as well as his contemporary, Théodore Géricault. The sheer brutality of the voracious lion and the heightened color palette of Delacroix's watercolor derive from Rubens' lion hunt compositions. Stubbs' A Lion Attacking A Horse (fig. 1) which was disseminated in engravings as well--was also clearly an influence upon Delacroix. Géricault also frequently depicted animals in combat and in both his powerful circa 1818-1820 painting of lions in a mountainous landscape and 1823 lithograph of a horse being devoured by a lion, the compositional connection to Delacroix's watercolor is undeniable (figs. 2 and 3).
The present drawing focuses on the unforgiving savagery of the two beasts locked in combat. It embodies the Romantic concept of nature and wild animals and the stark, broadly painted background heightens the drama of the lion's dominance. Delacroix's composition is an amalgam of real life observation, Romantic imagination, and the influence of earlier artists.
There is an oil on canvas version of this composition in the Gezira Museum, Cairo (fig. 4). The painting, also dating from circa 1844, is slightly more cropped than the present watercolor. There are two drawings in the Louvre, one a watercolor, the other a tracing in black chalk of the same composition. The watercolor and the present drawing were both formerly in the collection of Comte d'Aquila whose collection was sold in Paris in 1868. Serullaz also notes a sketch of this subject in the artist's posthumous sale (lot 149). The tracing was probably used (in reverse) for a lithograph published in 1844 (Delteil 126) by Les Artistes Contemporains, Paris.
(fig. 1) George Stubbs, A Lion Attacking A Horse, 1762. Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection, New Haven.
(fig. 2) Jean-Louis Théodore Géricault, Lions dans un paysage montagneux, circa 1818-1820. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
(fig. 3) Jean-Louis Théodore Géricault, Cheval dévoré par un lion, 1823, The Cleveland Museum of Art.
(fig. 4) Ferdinand-Victor-Eugène Delacroix, Lion dévorant un cheval, 1844. Gezira Museum, Cairo.