A Brown Horse Facing Left
Ferdinand Victor Eugene Delacroix
Details
- Artist
- Ferdinand Victor Eugene Delacroix
- Title
- A Brown Horse Facing Left
- Medium
- oil on canvas
- Size
- 46 x 55.5 cm
- Details
verso: Brush Sketches of a Man’s Head with a Turban, a Horse’s Head and Hindquarters
This work was included in the Collectors Exhibition 2016 and is no longer on consignment with Lauraine Diggins Fine Art. For any enquiries, please contact the Gallery.
Provenance
Delacroix studio sale, Paris, 22-27 February 1864, lot 207 (Cheval dans une écurie),
no dimensions listed, bears sale wax seal from the sale on stretcher,
Auguste Bornot (1802 – 1888, married Felice Poissonier, Delacroix’s cousin)
by descent
Exhibited
Ecole des Beaux-Arts, 1885, Paris, no. 19
Literature
Robaut., Alfred, L'œuvre complet de Eugène Delacroix: peintures, dessins, gravures, lithographies, Paris, 1885, no. 72, (dimensions wrongly given as 31 x 40 cm);
Escholier., Raymond, La Vie et L'Art Romantiques; Delacroix, Pientre, Gravueur, Ecrivain, ed. H. Floury, Paris, 1926, vol. I, p. 100
Johnson, Lee, The Paintings of Eugène Delacroix: A Critical Catalogue, Oxford, 1981, vol. 1, no. 49, pl. 42
Further Information
Delacroix was fascinated by animals, in particular horses, and depicted them throughout his career, both alone and as participants in compositions. In his early years, he drew and painted detailed anatomical studies and sketches in which the horse dominates and the context is given summary attention, as in this painting. Later these animals were shown in dramatic settings in his Romantic works and in exotic northern Africa subjects among his Orientalist paintings. Finally, energetic compositions concentrating on the animal itself and confirming the artist’s intimate knowledge of the horse’s anatomy and movement are to be found among his late works.
To view the catalogue essay please click here.