Delacroix went twice to Antwerp, the first time was in 1839 when he was in Holland with Elisa Boulanger. He mentions this in a letter written from The Hague on the 21 September 1839 where he expresses his admiration for Rubens: '..pour ne parler que de Rubens, qui est le Dieu de tout ce monde là, j'ai vu ici ce que je n'avais pas compris ailleurs, c'est combien il a été inégal comme tout le monde... quand il s'affranchit de ses modèles il est le grand Rubens. Je te détaillerai cela. J'ai bien vu Anvers'. [To speak only of Rubens, who is the God of this world, I saw here things which I did not understand elsewhere, how he was unequal compared to everyone else ...when he frees himself from his models, he is the grand Rubens. I will detail this to you. I saw Antwerp well.] He returned to Belgium in 1850 and according to his Journal he stayed in Antwerp on the 8 July and during the weekend of the 10 and 11 August, M. Sérullaz, Inventaire général des dessins, école française, dessins d'Eugène Delacroix, Paris, 1984, II, p. 50.