.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
This pencil and watercolour drawing is a sophisticated study for Delacroix's famous oil painting La Barque de Don Juan (fig. 1) painted in 1840, now in the Moreau-Nélaton collection at the Louvre. In this study, the figures are already placed as they appear in the finished painting. The scene is inspired by a passage in Byron's poem Don Juan, in which the shipwrecked Don Juan and his companions run out of food and organise a lottery to determine who will be sacrificed:
'The lots were made, and mark'd, and mix'd, and handed
In silent horror'
(Canto II, stanza 75)
Delacroix knew the work of Byron well and it remained a principal source of inspiration throughout his career. His painterly interpretation of this shipwreck, however, is a clear reference to Théodore Géricault's painting Le radeau de la Méduse which Delacroix had seen and admired at the Salon of 1819.
This drawing is both a fine demonstration of the artist's mastery and a key element in the conception of one his best works.
'The lots were made, and mark'd, and mix'd, and handed
In silent horror'
(Canto II, stanza 75)
Delacroix knew the work of Byron well and it remained a principal source of inspiration throughout his career. His painterly interpretation of this shipwreck, however, is a clear reference to Théodore Géricault's painting Le radeau de la Méduse which Delacroix had seen and admired at the Salon of 1819.
This drawing is both a fine demonstration of the artist's mastery and a key element in the conception of one his best works.