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Lot Essay
Much has been written about Eugène Delacroix the painter and draughtsman, much less about his practice as a printmaker, despite his substantial oeuvre created between 1814 and 1856. Aged only 21, Delacroix was one of the early adopters of lithography, a technique invented in the very year of his birth, 1798, by Johann Alois Senefelder (1771- 1834) in Germany. His first lithographs were social and political caricatures published in the periodical Miroir in 1821-22. Although amusing and competently drawn, it is clear from these works that the young artist had not yet grasped the full potential of the new printing method, as he still relied on the descriptive line as the defining element of his compositions. In 1825 however he began to experiment with crayon and the tonal qualities of lithography, as well as with the scraper, scratching white lines or areas into a black base tone, a method later known as manière noire - used extensively in the present print. The first larger group of prints in this manner were his illustrations for Goethe's Faust, printed and published by Charles Motte in Paris in 1828 (see lot 304), which are characterised by an intense chiaroscuro.
Perhaps inspired by Théodore Géricault, as well as George Stubbs and Antoine-Louis Barye, it was around the same time that Delacroix began to created depictions - almost portraits - of horses, but also lions, tigers and other wild beasts. From 1828 onwards, he would make over two hundred prints of animals, the majority after 1830. Cheval sauvage terrassé par un tigre is hence one of the earliest - and arguably most exciting - of these animal scenes and of his lithographic oeuvre on the whole. Here, Delacroix is employing his lithographic crayons with the same freedom as he would use a pen or brush on a sheet of paper, composing the image not only out of black and white but a highly nuanced register of middle tones. His manner is gestural and free-flowing, full of movement and drama. His marks are no longer timid and descriptive, but confidently visible and in places almost abstract, allowing the scene to take shape out of varying degrees of light and shade.
It is fascinating to think that Francisco de Goya, only three years earlier in Bordeaux, had also turned to lithography for his series of four prints of bullfighting scenes, now known as the Bulls of Bordeaux (1825). Both artists must have felt quite independently that this was the natural printing technique for the depiction of animal combat - or conversely that the motif of fighting animals was ideally suited to demonstrate the endless possibilities of the method and to show off their brilliance as draftsmen. While Goya seems mainly interested in the visual perception of the spectacle and its realisation on paper, Delacroix the Romantic is ultimately driven by something else, as Ann G. Yaffe suggested: 'seeking the sublime in the dangerous and the terrible. ' (Yaffe, p. 27)
The subtlety and spontaneity of Delacroix's mark-making is particularly evident in the present, very rare trial proof. Delteil records a total of 7 impressions of the first state. A related pencil drawing in the same direction is in the Szépművészeti Museum in Budapest (MFA 1935.2691).
Perhaps inspired by Théodore Géricault, as well as George Stubbs and Antoine-Louis Barye, it was around the same time that Delacroix began to created depictions - almost portraits - of horses, but also lions, tigers and other wild beasts. From 1828 onwards, he would make over two hundred prints of animals, the majority after 1830. Cheval sauvage terrassé par un tigre is hence one of the earliest - and arguably most exciting - of these animal scenes and of his lithographic oeuvre on the whole. Here, Delacroix is employing his lithographic crayons with the same freedom as he would use a pen or brush on a sheet of paper, composing the image not only out of black and white but a highly nuanced register of middle tones. His manner is gestural and free-flowing, full of movement and drama. His marks are no longer timid and descriptive, but confidently visible and in places almost abstract, allowing the scene to take shape out of varying degrees of light and shade.
It is fascinating to think that Francisco de Goya, only three years earlier in Bordeaux, had also turned to lithography for his series of four prints of bullfighting scenes, now known as the Bulls of Bordeaux (1825). Both artists must have felt quite independently that this was the natural printing technique for the depiction of animal combat - or conversely that the motif of fighting animals was ideally suited to demonstrate the endless possibilities of the method and to show off their brilliance as draftsmen. While Goya seems mainly interested in the visual perception of the spectacle and its realisation on paper, Delacroix the Romantic is ultimately driven by something else, as Ann G. Yaffe suggested: 'seeking the sublime in the dangerous and the terrible. ' (Yaffe, p. 27)
The subtlety and spontaneity of Delacroix's mark-making is particularly evident in the present, very rare trial proof. Delteil records a total of 7 impressions of the first state. A related pencil drawing in the same direction is in the Szépművészeti Museum in Budapest (MFA 1935.2691).