Figure Studies related to "Liberty Leading the People"

Eugène Delacroix

1830 · Pen and brown ink, brush and brown wash · Drawings and Prints

This sheet includes early sketches of the bodies featured in the foreground of Delacroix’s remarkable submission to the Salon of 1831, "Liberty Leading the People" (1830; Musée du Louvre), his only painting of contemporary events in France: the July Revolution of 1830. The sprawled corpse at center with unbuttoned trousers appears in the lower right foreground of the painting. The slightly generalized character of the figures suggests that they were likely drawn from memory, rather than directly from life—casualties observed in the street and later recalled with pen and brush.

Artist

Eugène Delacroix

Date

1830

Medium

Pen and brown ink, brush and brown wash

Department

Drawings and Prints

Credit line

Gift from the Karen B. Cohen Collection of Eugène Delacroix, in honor of Keith Christiansen, 2013