Crouching Woman

1827·Black and red chalk, with pastel, heightened with white chalk, over wash, on tan wove paper·24.6 × 31.4 cm (9 11/16 × 12 3/8 in.)

Crouching Woman is one of five pastel studies for Eugène Delacroix’s monumental painting The Death of Sardanapalus (1827; Musée du Louvre, Paris), which helped establish his reputation as the leader of the French Romantic movement. Of the few pastels that Delacroix produced, this is the only group that can be related to a single painting. Inspired by an 1821 play by the English Romantic poet Lord Byron, the canvas dramatically depicts the last king of the Assyrians. Reclining on his bed moments before his own suicide, the king gazes passively at his wives, concubines, and livestock as they are slain by his order to prevent their slaughter by the enemy army that has just defeated them. In this expressive image of one of the concubines, Delacroix convincingly captured the horror of the moment. With a sure, sweeping line, he described the rhythmic, taut posture of a figure recoiling from a blow or the stab of a knife. Although this powerful figure is significantly truncated in the final painting, the pastel provides insight into Delacroix’s creative process, and its sensual drama is representative of the Romantic period.

Catalogue

Year: 1827
Medium: Black and red chalk, with pastel, heightened with white chalk, over wash, on tan wove paper
Dimensions: 24.6 × 31.4 cm (9 11/16 × 12 3/8 in.)
Collection: Art Institute of Chicago
Artist: Eugene Delacroix

Artist

Eugene Delacroix

Painting

Born in 1789 in Paris, French Romantic painter Eugéne Delacroix received his early training from Pierre Guérin in a classicist vein. While that approach would have little effect on Delacroix’s ultimate artistic development, it was through this connection that he met the painter Théodore Gericault, creator of the masterwork Raft of the Medusa, 1818–19, a work for which Delacroix posed. Ultimately, Delacroix drew most of his inspiration from the plethora of art available for him to study at the Louvre. He was also exposed to a wide of array of literature, including the writing of Shakespeare, Byron, and Scott. It was those literary sources that would ultimately be the catalyst to Delacroix’s full embrace of Romanticism, despite the growing popularity of Neoclassicism.

Charenton-Saint-Maurice, France

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