After Eugène Delacroix (1798–1863) had redeemed his reputation at the Salon in 1831 with Liberty Leading the People (1830), he had some history paintings to complete, among them a commission from the Ministry of the Interior for a large work to commemorate the visit of Charles X to Lorraine, for which the chosen subject was the death of Charles the Bold at the Battle of Nancy on 5 January 1477.
Delacroix’s large canvas showing the Battle of Nancy (1477) was completed in 1831, and shown at the Salon three years later. It depicts Charles the Duke of Burgundy fighting recklessly in conditions so cold and snowy that he had lost his cavalry. He became mired in a pond, where he was killed by a horseman from Lorraine as he was trying to extract himself from the icy water. For all his trouble, the task proved thankless when Delacroix’s spirited rendering of the subject was taken apart for its historical inaccuracies.
Since his youth, Delacroix had been interested, and at times obsessed, with travelling to Egypt. In the summer of 1830, Louis-Philippe’s army had taken Algiers, and the king was keen to extend his influence in North Africa. By mid-October, Count Charles de Mornay had been appointed to lead a diplomatic mission to the chief sovereign of Morocco, and the Count’s wife had recommended that he took the painter with him as his artist, largely on the grounds of his social skills rather than his art.
Delacroix had little time to prepare, and at three o’clock in the morning of 1 January 1832, once they had completed their New Year celebrations, the Count and his artist set off for Toulon, from where they sailed on a frigate ten days later. They arrived off Tangier on the twenty-fourth, and he then spent the period until the tenth of May ashore in Morocco, which included Ramadan. During his return, Delacroix spent some time in Algiers, where he gained access to the interior of a Muslim home. At the end, Delacroix had filled at least seven sketchbooks and many loose sheets with watercolours, annotations and other material that he was to use during the rest of his career.
He painted many views of Moroccans with their horses, including Three Arab Horsemen at an Encampment.
His Strolling Players may have been painted the following year from his contemporary notes.
This oil painting of a Street in Meknès may have been painted there during Ramadan, and was exhibited at the Salon of 1834.
But Delacroix’s burning desire was to see inside the home of a Muslim family, and to paint the visual riches that he expected to see there. During his stay in Morocco, the closest that he got was visiting several of the local Jewish community, and his notebooks contain annotated sketches and watercolour paintings of what he saw.
When he did get the opportunity to paint local people, he devoted great attention to their clothing and jewellery, as shown in this watercolour of A Moorish Couple on Their Terrace (1832).
Saada, the Wife of Abraham Ben-Chimol, and Préciada, One of Their Daughters (1832) shows the wife and daughter of the dragoman of the French consulate in Tangier, one of the Jewish community with whom Delacroix had closest contact.
Among these sketches is Two Arab Women Seated, a study for his first great Orientalist painting, shown at the Salon in 1834.
Delacroix’s Women of Algiers in their Apartment is a complex hybrid, based in part on his watercolours and sketches made of local models during his visits to Morocco and Tangier, and studio work in Paris using a European model dressed in clothing the artist had brought back from North Africa. The black servant at the right appears to be an invention added for effect, as an extra touch of exoticism. The end result is harmonious, and makes exceptional use of light and colour, its fine details giving the image the air of complete authenticity.
The painting was a great success, attracting flowing praise from the critics, and was the start of a long series of Orientalist paintings both by Delacroix and those whom it inspired over the following century and more, including the admiration of Paul Cézanne.
References
Barthélémy Jobert (2018) Delacroix, new and expanded edn, Princeton UP. ISBN 978 0 691 18236 0.
Patrick Noon and Christopher Riopelle (2015) Delacroix and the Rise of Modern Art, National Gallery and Yale UP. ISBN 978 1 857 09575 3.
Lucy Norton (translator) (1995) The Journal of Eugène Delacroix, 3rd edn, Phaedon. ISBN 978 0 7148 3359 0.
Arlette Sérullaz (2004) Delacroix, Louvre Drawing Gallery, 5 Continents. ISBN 978 8 874 39105 9.
Beth S Wright (editor) (2001) The Cambridge Companion to Delacroix, Cambridge UP. ISBN 978 0 521 65077 1.