Sketchbook with views of Tours, France and its environs

Eugène Delacroix

1828–29 · Graphite and watercolor on wove paper · Drawings and Prints

Delacroix recorded numerous visits to the zoo and the natural history museum at the Jardin des Plantes in Paris, where he could sketch lions from life and carefully study taxidermied specimens. He described the experience as a revitalizing one that encouraged his attention to nature: "How necessary it is to . . . stick one’s head out of doors and try to read from creation, which has nothing in common with cities and the works of man." This sheet, inscribed February 12, likely dates from 1829; it comes from a now disbound sketchbook that otherwise contained drawings from the artist's 1828 visit to Tours in the Loire Valley.

Artist

Eugène Delacroix

Date

1828–29

Medium

Graphite and watercolor on wove paper

Department

Drawings and Prints

Credit line

Gift of Alexander and Gregoire Tarnopol, 1969