Studies of a Rearing Horse Attacked by a Lion and a Lion Wrestling with a Serpent

Eugène Delacroix

1830s · Pen and brown ink, brush and brown wash, on writing paper · Drawings and Prints

The turbulent forms of the animals featured on this sheet show Delacroix’s imagination at work in ink. Animal attacks and hunts were a constant theme in his work from 1828 onward. His firsthand experiences witnessing clashes between creatures combined with his study of works by other artists, such as the dramatic seventeenth-century hunts of Flemish painter Peter Paul Rubens, enabled him to invent violent confrontations with his pen. The repetition of the entangled animals produces an effect aptly compared to "time-stopped motion" and gives a sense of successive moments in the writhing struggle.

Artist

Eugène Delacroix

Date

1830s

Medium

Pen and brown ink, brush and brown wash, on writing paper

Department

Drawings and Prints

Credit line

Gift from the Karen B. Cohen Collection of Eugène Delacroix, in honor of Philippe de Montebello, 2013