Faust and Mephistopheles galloping on Walpurgis Night

Details

FERDINAND-VICTOR-EUGÈNE DELACROIX (SAINT MAURICE 1798-1863 PARIS)
Faust and Mephistopheles galloping on Walpurgis Night
graphite, black pastel, brush, pen and China ink, on tracing paper
23.8 x 34.9 cm (9 3⁄8 x 13 5⁄8 in.)

Provenance

Henry Nanteuil de La Norville (1876-1941), Paris, thence by descent.

Special notice

This lot has been imported from outside of the UK for sale and placed under the Temporary Admission regime. Import VAT is payable at 5% on the hammer price. VAT at 20% will be added to the buyer’s premium but will not be shown separately on our invoice.

Conditions of sale

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Lot Essay

This is a preparatory study for one of 17 lithographs illustrating the French translation of Goethe's Faust: a Tragedy, published in Paris in 1828 (L.D. 73). The French collector Étienne Moreau Nélaton (1859-1927) owned another drawing for the same composition, in graphite, with a focus on the characters (Musée du Louvre, inv. RF 10006; L. Delteil, op. cit., 1997, p. 189). Another version in brown ink, with vigorous brush strokes, and in the same direction as the lithograph is in the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam (inv. FII 3 (PK); see J. Mack-Andrick, Eugène Delacroix, exhib. cat., Karlsruhe, Staatliche Kunsthalle, 2003-2004, no. 47, ill.).

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