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拍品專文
Eugène Delacroix was not only one of the giants of 19th Century European art, but also the first truly 'Orientalist' painter. His trip to North Africa in 1832 provided a travel and working template for all the artists who continued in this genre, although Delacroix's works have a freshness and energy that are rarely matched in those of his successors. They combine a Romantic admiration for the nobility of the local people with a fascination for the colour of the exotic culture. The drawings and sketches made by Delacroix during and immediately after his journey would have a singular impact on the development of his career by offering him source material for the Orientalist paintings which he continued to paint for the rest of his life. They included numerous studies of desert encampments, Moroccan landscape and architecture, and quickly sketched portraits of local people.
This splendidly preserved and highly finished watercolour was executed by Delacroix after his return to Paris, probably as a work in its own right. The composition is based, with some amendments, on those of a painting and a print executed shortly after his return from North Africa. These differences can be noted in the still life in the lower right corner, in the figures of the horseman and his groom in the background, and in the addition of the agave plant in the upper right corner, which appears in neither painting nor print. The watercolour omits the fortress-like structure at the top of the hill and the distant tower which are shown in the print.
The related picture, dated 1834 (Paris, Private Collection; Johnson, op. cit., no. 357), was exhibited at the Salon of 1835. It may have originally derived from a wash drawing (illustrated by E. Escholier, Eugène Delacroix, Paris, 1963), which was executed outside the walls of Oran, where Delacroix broke his journey from Tangiers to Algiers on around 20 June 1832. The print, showing the composition in reverse, was published in 1833 under the title Arabes d’Oran (A. Robaut, L'œuvre complet de Eugène Delacroix: peintures, dessins, gravures, lithographies, Paris, 1885, no. 462).
This splendidly preserved and highly finished watercolour was executed by Delacroix after his return to Paris, probably as a work in its own right. The composition is based, with some amendments, on those of a painting and a print executed shortly after his return from North Africa. These differences can be noted in the still life in the lower right corner, in the figures of the horseman and his groom in the background, and in the addition of the agave plant in the upper right corner, which appears in neither painting nor print. The watercolour omits the fortress-like structure at the top of the hill and the distant tower which are shown in the print.
The related picture, dated 1834 (Paris, Private Collection; Johnson, op. cit., no. 357), was exhibited at the Salon of 1835. It may have originally derived from a wash drawing (illustrated by E. Escholier, Eugène Delacroix, Paris, 1963), which was executed outside the walls of Oran, where Delacroix broke his journey from Tangiers to Algiers on around 20 June 1832. The print, showing the composition in reverse, was published in 1833 under the title Arabes d’Oran (A. Robaut, L'œuvre complet de Eugène Delacroix: peintures, dessins, gravures, lithographies, Paris, 1885, no. 462).