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Cheval attaqué par une panthère
Details
EUGÈNE-VICTOR-FERDINAND DELACROIX (SAINT-MAURICE 1798-1863 PARIS)
Cheval attaqué par une panthère
signé ‘Eug Delacroix’ (en bas à gauche)
aquarelle et gouache, rehaussée de gomme arabique
10,5 x 19 cm (4 1⁄8 x 7 ½ in.)
Cheval attaqué par une panthère
signé ‘Eug Delacroix’ (en bas à gauche)
aquarelle et gouache, rehaussée de gomme arabique
10,5 x 19 cm (4 1⁄8 x 7 ½ in.)
Provenance
Chez Louis-Adolphe Beugniet (1820-1893), Paris, 1884.
Vente anonyme; Paris, Galerie Charpentier, 3 décembre 1957, lot 35 (adjugé 1 080 000 francs).
Acquis au cours de celle-ci par Doña Graziella Patiño de Ortiz Linares (1900-1980) et Son Excellence Don Jorge Ortiz Linares (1894-1965) ;
Puis par descendance.
Vente anonyme; Paris, Galerie Charpentier, 3 décembre 1957, lot 35 (adjugé 1 080 000 francs).
Acquis au cours de celle-ci par Doña Graziella Patiño de Ortiz Linares (1900-1980) et Son Excellence Don Jorge Ortiz Linares (1894-1965) ;
Puis par descendance.
Literature
A. Robaut, L'Œuvre complet d'Eugène Delacroix, Paris, 1885, n° 762.
Further Details
EUGÈNE-VICTOR-FERDINAND DELACROIX, HORSE ATTACKED BY A PANTHER, WATERCOLOUR AND BODYCOLOUR, HEIGHTENED WITH GUM ARABIC
This previously unpublished watercolor, known only through its mention in Alfred Robaut’s catalogue raisonné published in 1885, fits squarely within the romantic and animal-themed universe of Eugène Delacroix, for whom scenes of combat between wild beasts and horses constituted one of his favorite subjects.
The work should be considered alongside several of the artist’s known compositions based on the same motif, notably the famous painting Horse Attacked by a Lioness, formerly in the collection of Étienne Moreau-Nélaton, dating from the early 1840s and engraved by his pupil Edmé Saint-Marcel in 1843 (Paris, Louvre Museum, inv. RF 1653; D. Font-Réaulx (ed.), Delacroix en héritage. Autour de la collection Moreau-Nélaton, ex. cat., Paris, Musée Delacroix, 2013, no. 46). The posthumous sale of the artist’s estate, held from 22 to 27 February 1864, also lists several drawings and watercolors devoted to similar subjects, including Lion Devouring a Horse (lot 478), Panther Lying Beside a Dead Horse (lot 489), and Tiger Bringing Down a Horse (lot 491), attesting to the importance of this iconographic theme in Delacroix’s work.
Nourished by his study of animals at the Menagerie of the Jardin des Plantes in Paris, the artist developed a profoundly Romantic vision of nature, in which energy, savagery, and tragedy merge in a single pictorial impulse. This watercolor may also be compared with the contemporary explorations of Antoine-Louis Barye, with whom Delacroix shared a passion for depicting wildlife. The two artists regularly visited the Menagerie together to observe, study, and sketch animals, both living and dead. Barye treated a comparable subject in a watercolor depicting Tiger Devouring a Horse, now preserved at the Petit Palais in Paris (inv. PPD1030), executed from a different viewpoint and with a different graphic technique, yet animated by the same dramatic intensity.
Delacroix invested all of his energy into these scenes of combat, where a powerful sense of movement and force emerges through a vigorous palette and rapidly sketched lines. In his Journal on 12 October 1854, the artist described the emotion inspired by creating such animal combats: 'I worked all day until after three o’clock in a frenzy. I could not tear myself away from it. I advanced the Combat of the Lion and the Tiger.' (E. Delacroix, Journal, Paris, reprint edition, 1996, p. 483).
Figures
Fig. 1: E. Delacroix, Horse Attacked by a Lioness, oil on canvas, Paris, Louvre Museum.
Fig. 2: A.- L. Barye, Tiger Devouring a Horse, graphite and watercolor, Paris, Petit Palais.
This previously unpublished watercolor, known only through its mention in Alfred Robaut’s catalogue raisonné published in 1885, fits squarely within the romantic and animal-themed universe of Eugène Delacroix, for whom scenes of combat between wild beasts and horses constituted one of his favorite subjects.
The work should be considered alongside several of the artist’s known compositions based on the same motif, notably the famous painting Horse Attacked by a Lioness, formerly in the collection of Étienne Moreau-Nélaton, dating from the early 1840s and engraved by his pupil Edmé Saint-Marcel in 1843 (Paris, Louvre Museum, inv. RF 1653; D. Font-Réaulx (ed.), Delacroix en héritage. Autour de la collection Moreau-Nélaton, ex. cat., Paris, Musée Delacroix, 2013, no. 46). The posthumous sale of the artist’s estate, held from 22 to 27 February 1864, also lists several drawings and watercolors devoted to similar subjects, including Lion Devouring a Horse (lot 478), Panther Lying Beside a Dead Horse (lot 489), and Tiger Bringing Down a Horse (lot 491), attesting to the importance of this iconographic theme in Delacroix’s work.
Nourished by his study of animals at the Menagerie of the Jardin des Plantes in Paris, the artist developed a profoundly Romantic vision of nature, in which energy, savagery, and tragedy merge in a single pictorial impulse. This watercolor may also be compared with the contemporary explorations of Antoine-Louis Barye, with whom Delacroix shared a passion for depicting wildlife. The two artists regularly visited the Menagerie together to observe, study, and sketch animals, both living and dead. Barye treated a comparable subject in a watercolor depicting Tiger Devouring a Horse, now preserved at the Petit Palais in Paris (inv. PPD1030), executed from a different viewpoint and with a different graphic technique, yet animated by the same dramatic intensity.
Delacroix invested all of his energy into these scenes of combat, where a powerful sense of movement and force emerges through a vigorous palette and rapidly sketched lines. In his Journal on 12 October 1854, the artist described the emotion inspired by creating such animal combats: 'I worked all day until after three o’clock in a frenzy. I could not tear myself away from it. I advanced the Combat of the Lion and the Tiger.' (E. Delacroix, Journal, Paris, reprint edition, 1996, p. 483).
Figures
Fig. 1: E. Delacroix, Horse Attacked by a Lioness, oil on canvas, Paris, Louvre Museum.
Fig. 2: A.- L. Barye, Tiger Devouring a Horse, graphite and watercolor, Paris, Petit Palais.
Brought to you by
Paul Gallois
Head of European Furniture, EMEA