Delacroix (1798-1863)

Home , 19th century, Hunting (Carracci), Palais Bourbon, The Barque of Dante, The Battle of Nancy, Women of Algiers

PRESS KIT

Exhibition March 29– July 23, 2018 Hall Napoléon

1 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Press Release page 3

The Exhbition Layout page 6

Pictures available for the press page 15

La liste complète des œuvres exposées est disponible sur demande : celine.dauvergne@louvre.fr 2 PRESS RELEASE Exhibition March 29 – July 23, 2018 Hall Napoléon Delacroix (1798-1863)

Eugène Delacroix was one of the giants of French painting, but his last full retrospective exhibition in Paris dates back to 1963, the centenary year of his death. In collaboration with the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Louvre is holding a historic exhibition featuring some 180 works—mostly paintings—as a tribute to his entire career. From the young artist’s big hits at the Salons of the 1820s to his final, lesser- known, and mysterious religious paintings and landscapes, the exhibition will showcase the tension that characterizes the art of Delacroix, who strove for individuality while aspiring to follow in the footsteps of the Flemish and Venetian masters of the 16th and 17th centuries. It will aim to answer the questions raised by Delacroix’s long, prolific, and multifaceted career while introducing visitors to an engaging character: a virtuoso writer, painter, and illustrator who was curious, critical, and cultivated, infatuated with fame and devoted to his work. The exhibition will bring together masterpieces by Delacroix from museums in France (Lille, Bordeaux, Nancy, Montpellier, etc.) and exceptional international loans, particularly from the United States, Great Britain, Germany, Canada, Belgium, and Hungary. Eugène Delacroix, July 28, 1830: Liberty Leading the People Much remains to be learnt about Delacroix’s career. It spanned a little over (detail), Musée du Louvre © RMN-Grand Palais (musée du forty years, from 1821 to 1863, but most of his best known paintings were Louvre) / Michel Urtado produced during the first decade. The output from the next three quarters of his career is difficult to define, as it cannot be confined to a single artistic This exhibition is organized by the Musée du Louvre, Paris, and the movement. Although Delacroix is often hailed as a forerunner of modern Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. colorists, his career does not always fit a formalist interpretation of 19th-century art. Exhibition curators: Sébastien Allard, Director of the Department of Paintings, The exhibition is organized in three sections, presenting the three major Musée du Louvre; Côme Fabre, periods in Delacroix’s long career and highlighting the motivations that may Department of Paintings, Musée du have inspired and guided his painting. The first section—focusing on the Louvre; Asher Miller, Department of conquest and triumph of the first decade—studies the artist’s break with European Paintings, The Metropolitan neoclassicism and his renewed interest in the expressive and narrative Museum of Art. possibilities of paint. The second part explores the ways in which his large public murals (his main activity from 1835 to 1855) impacted on his easel This exhibition enjoys the support of Caisse painting, with its visible tension between the monumental and the decorative. d’Épargne, Kinoshita Group, Bouygues Bâtiment Ile-de-France and Deloitte. Finally, the third section shows how his later years were seemingly dominated by a keen interest in landscape painting, tempered by an attempt to extract the essence from his visual memories.

These keys to interpretation allow for a new classification that goes beyond a PRACTICAL INFORMATION mere grouping by genre and transcends the classical–Romantic divide, Opening hours: daily except Tuesdays from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. and until 9:45 p.m. on indicating instead that Delacroix’s painting resonated with the great artistic Wednesdays and Fridays movements of his day: Romanticism of course, but also Realism, eclecticism, Admission: €15 (collections + exhibitions) and various forms of Historicism. Time slot booking (compulsory): www.ticketlouvre.fr Further information: www.louvre.fr/en #expoDelacroix

Musée du Louvre External Relations Department Press Contact Anne-Laure Béatrix, Director Céline Dauvergne Adel Ziane, Head of Communications Subdepartment [email protected] Sophie Grange, Head of Press Division Tel. + 33 (0)1 40 20 84 66 3

Paintings by Delacroix on display in the museum’s galleries Denon wing, Level 1, the Salle Mollien and the Galerie d’Apollon Sully wing, Level 2, Rooms 942 (Delacroix) and 950 (Moreau-Nélaton collection)

Because of their size, the two largest paintings by Delacroix in the Louvre’s collection—The Death of Sardanapalus and The Capture of Constantinople by the Crusaders—cannot be moved to the Hall Napoléon. They will therefore remain in the Salle Mollien (Denon wing, Level 1), where they are on permanent display.

Eugène Delacroix, The Death of Sardanapalus, Musée du From March 21 and for the duration of the exhibition, they will be joined Louvre © Musée du Louvre, dist. RMN - Grand Palais / by Christ in the Garden of Olives, an exceptional loan from the City of Angèle Dequier Paris. This recently conserved painting is usually in the transept of the church of Saint-Paul-Saint-Louis, in the 4th arrondissement of Paris. This is a unique opportunity for museum visitors to see the first religious painting commissioned from the young Delacroix in 1824 on display next to The Death of Sardanapalus—two works that were both exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1827–1828.

The Louvre also boasts one of Delacroix’s finest decorative works, Apollo Victorious over Python, painted in the central panel of the ceiling in the Galerie d’Apollon (Denon wing, Level 1), designed in the 1660s by Charles Le Brun.

The Louvre holds the world’s largest collection of paintings by Delacroix. Although most of them will be on display in the retrospective exhibition in the Hall Napoléon, some will remain in the permanent collections on Eugène Delacroix, Christ in the Garden of Olives. Before con- Level 2 of the Sully wing, notably the Battle of Poitiers, the Portrait of servation treatment. Paris, church of Saint-Paul-Saint-Louis, Frédéric Chopin, and one of the later versions of Medea about to Murder COARC © COARC / Roger-Viollet Her Children (known as Furious Medea).

The museum ticket allows visitors to admire these masterpieces by Delacroix as well as those featured in the exhibition in the Hall Napoléon.

Eugène Delacroix, Apollo Victorious over Python. Galerie d’Apollon, Musée du Louvre © Musée du Louvre, dist. RMN - Grand Palais / Olivier Ouadah

4 AT THE LOUVRE AUDITORIUM AT THE MUSÉE DELACROIX Lectures Grappling with the Modern April 5, 2018 at 12:30 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. (duration 75 mins) From Delacroix to the Present Day Presentation of the exhibition “Delacroix (1798–1863)” (in French) April 11–July 23, 2018 by Sébastien Allard and Côme Fabre, Musée du Louvre. In parallel to the retrospective exhibition at the Louvre, the Musée Delacroix is holding April 13, 2018 at 12:30 p.m. an exhibition on the murals painted by Presentation of the exhibition “Grappling with the Modern” (in Delacroix for the Chapelle des Saints-Anges French) in the church of Saint-Sulpice (which has by Dominique de Font-Réaulx, Musée Delacroix, and Marie Montfort, Ville de recently undergone conservation work). Paris. They include Jacob Wrestling with the Angel, a magnificent monumental painting that is often regarded as the artist’s spiritual May 3, 17, 24, and 31, 2018 from 6:30 to 8 p.m. testament; commissioned in 1849, it was not Delacroix: the Story of an Oeuvre completed until 1861. Delacroix set up his last Series of lectures, Art on Stage, and literary ﬁction (in French) studio (now the Musée Delacroix) on Rue de “You treat me as only the glorious dead are treated” by Sébastien Allard Fürstenberg, near Saint-Sulpice, in order to finish these superb decorative works that are and Côme Fabre, readings of critical texts, May 3, 2018. of such significance to the museum. Delacroix, a Young Man of the Enlightenment? with Sébastien Allard Moreover, the analysis and conservation and Danièle Cohn, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne. Readings of work have shed new light on these three extracts from Delacroix’s Journal and Letters, May 17, 2018. chapel paintings by Delacroix. The exhibition will be an opportunity to bring Eugène Delacroix, Notes from a Journey to Morocco: text and sketches, together works by Delacroix and by the many Art on Stage by Marie-Pierre Salé, Musée du Louvre, May 24, 2018. 19th- and 20th-century artists he inspired, Reading from Delacroix’s travel journal . including Gauguin, Epstein, Redon, and The Speech Delacroix Never Gave Chagall.

Literary fiction – original creation by Adrien Goetz, Académie des Talks, tours, and workshops (in French) Beaux-Arts, May 31, 2018. Four talks on the theme of “Conservation Secrets”, exhibition tours, Concerts workshops, a tour with a storyteller, and April 4 to May 17, 2018 a walking tour from the museum to the “Delacroix and Music” church of Saint-Sulpice. Information: Six thematic events featuring works by Chopin, Beethoven, Liszt, www.musee-delacroix.fr Mozart, Haydn, Berlioz, Saint-Saëns, Massenet, Gounod, and David: “Chopin’s Three Sonatas” (April 4, 2018 at 8 p.m.); “Chopin’s Legacy” (April 6, 2018 at 8 p.m.); “Romantic Figures” (April 7, 2018 at 4 p.m.); “Travels in the East” (April 12, 2018 at 12:30 p.m.); “Viennese Passions” (May 16, 2018 at 12:30 p.m.); “From Haydn to LOUVRE AUDITORIUM Chopin” (May 17, 2018 at 12:30 p.m.) PRACTICAL INFORMATION Information: Art history film +33 (0)1 40 20 55 55, Monday to Friday, April 18, 2018 at 12:30 p.m. 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Delacroix, le dernier combat (“Delacroix, the Final Battle”) www.louvre.fr Tickets: by Laurence Thiriat. French, 52 min, 2016. In person: Auditorium ticket windows Telephone: +33 (0)1 40 20 55 00 RELATED WORK Online: www.fnac.com Exhibition catalogue Delacroix, edited by Sébastien Allard and Côme Fabre. Co-published by: Musée du Louvre Éditions / Hazan. French, 480 pages, 280 illustrations, €45

Exhibition album. Co-published by: Musée du Louvre Éditions / Hazan. French, 48 pages, 40 illustrations, €8

Documentary Delacroix, directed by: Martin Fraudeau. French, 52 minutes, 2018. Jointly produced by: Musée du Louvre / Gédéon Programmes / France 5. To be broadcast on the France 5 TV channel in spring 2018.

TOURS AND WORKSHOPS (in French) Exhibition tours, workshops, and thematic talks called “À la découverte de Delacroix” (“Discovering Delacroix”) in the Louvre’s galleries.

5 PARCOURS OF THE EXHIBITION Text of the didactic panels of the exhibition

YOU TREAT ME AS ONLY THE GLORIOUS DEAD ARE TREATED… LETTER FROM DELACROIX TO CHARLES BAUDELAIRE, 27 JUNE 1859

Delacroix, again? Immortalised by Baudelaire as the leading light of the Romantic movement, revered by Cézanne and Picasso, does Eugène Delacroix really need an exhibition in Paris, where his memory is honoured more than anywhere else? The answer is a definite yes. Since the retrospective held at the Louvre in 1963, the centenary year of his death, seminal research has fine-tuned the timeline of his fortyyear career and inventoried over 800 paintings, several thousand drawings and an even greater number of written pages.

The time has come to interpret an artistic career that cannot easily be understood. Although the early years stand out clearly, with their overtones of scandal and the battles fought by Delacroix at the Paris Salons between 1822 and 1831, the rest of his career is more complex. The essence of his ‘modernity’ is difficult to define in his later career, with the advent of Gustave Courbet’s realism and the photographic revolution. Where did Delacroix’s originality lie? What drove his creativity? Where did he find the inspiration that kept him in the forefront of the art scene amid the political and artistic revolutions of the first half of the 19th century?

The exhibition presents a three-part overview of Delacroix’s career: the decade from 1822 to 1834, dominated by a thirst for novelty, fame and freedom; the years from 1835 to 1855, with the splendour of his murals and their dialogue with tradition, and the glory of his retrospective at the Universal Exhibition of 1855; and finally, the years until his death in 1863, with his interest in landscape and sensitivity to the creative role of memory.

Delacroix’s oeuvre, which retained its coherence despite its successive changes, seems best defined by a quest for singularity and a belief in the expressive power of painting, rather than by the elusive term ‘Romanticism’.

GLORY IS NOT AN EMPTY WORD FOR ME…

At the time of his birth in 1798, Eugène Delacroix seemed destined to join the elite of the Napoleonic Empire, but by the time he reached adulthood the Empire was collapsing. By 1815, when he was seventeen, he was the orphaned youngest child of a ruined family. His father had been an ambassador and prefect (a high government official), his brother a general and baron of the Empire – prestige that was nothing but a memory. Delacroix nonetheless inherited an uncommon thirst for fame; ‘glory is not an empty word’, he wrote to a friend. Without the possibility of military distinction, he was determined to find fame through painting.

The time was favourable: the position of leading French painter was vacant after the exile of Jacques-Louis David (1816) and the untimely death of Théodore Géricault (1824). Despite having trained with the neoclassical painter Pierre Guérin, Delacroix had little taste for academic competition; he preferred the quicker rise to fame made possible by exposure to the press and public opinion at the Salon.

Eugène Delacroix, The Barque of Dante. Musée du Louvre, Paris © RMN-Grand Palais (musée du Louvre) / Franck Raux 6 I WORRY AND I YEARN FOR NOVELTY... DELACROIX AT THE SALONS OF THE 1820S

Delacroix regarded the ‘Salon’ – the annual exhibition of contemporary art held at the Louvre – as the best place for gaining recognition. From 1822 to 1828, the works he exhibited there were carefully chosen to reflect his singularity and freedom, and a growing artistic boldness that shocked some critics. Despite his provocations, The Barque of Dante (1822) and Massacres at Chios (1824) earned him the support of the Comte de Forbin, director of the royal museums, who had the two paintings purchased by the French state. The Death of Sardanapalus, exhibited at the Salon of 1828, sparked the battle of Romanticism, causing such a scandal that no buyer came forward. In 1831, Delacroix returned with a work on a contemporary subject, Liberty Leading the People,painted to celebrate the 1830 Revolution. Although immediately purchased by the state, it was soon relegated to the storerooms because of its vehement composition.

In under ten years, Delacroix had tried his hand at almost every genre from the literary to the modern, refreshing them all and acquiring such fame that, in spite of himself, he was hailed as the leader of the avant-garde.

Eugène Delacroix, Greece on the Ruins of Missolonghi. Musée des Eugène Delacroix, Macbeth and the Witches Städelsche Kunstinstitut und Beaux-Arts, Bordeaux © Musée des Beaux-Arts, ville de Bordeaux. Städtische Galerie, Frankfurt © Städel Museum - U. Edelmann - Cliché L . Gauthier, F . Deval ARTOTHEK SOME EXTREMELY SINISTER EFFECTS... DELACROIX AND LITHOGRAPHY

After producing a few caricatures in his youth to pay for his studies, by the late 1820s Delacroix was famous enough to contribute to the illustration of high-quality literary publications such as Goethe’s Faust, published in 1828. He practised lithography, a recently invented printing method synonymous with liberation, as it made it possible to reproduce a drawing directly, without technical aid. Delacroix was a highly skilled lithographer, as can be seen in Macbeth and the Witches.

Rather than literal illustrations, he created visual equivalents of the texts he loved. He found greater inspiration in ‘modern’ literature than in ancient classics, and in foreign authors from Shakespeare to Goethe, who were being rediscovered at the time. With their delectable blend of horror, fantasy and dark humour and their rejection of the classical unities, the tragedies by those authors appealed to the Romantic taste. Attuned to this freedom of expression, Delacroix exploited the chromatic possibilities of black to convey his impressions as a reader with lavish illustrations hat overflowed into the margins of his compositions.

7 1827: THE INFERNAL FACILITY OF THE BRUSH…

In 1827, Delacroix was almost thirty. On the strength of his success at the Salon twice in a row, he gave himself free rein to express his personal sensibility with The Death of Sardanapalus (Salle Mollien, Denon wing), represented here by its preparatory sketch. This orgiastic suicide scene, an ode to freedom, was as much an attack on morality as on neoclassical conventions. Free of the need to imitate classical sculptures, Delacroix refocused the art of painting on its own means of expression; nude figures and drapery – the classical foundations of history painting – were worked in terms of surface rather than structure. Anatomical precision gave way to the gleam of skin; the geometry of folds was secondary to the shimmer of fabrics. Delacroix unleashed his appetite for ‘nice oily, thick paint’, and delighted in subjects that suited his palette: the skin tones of mixed-race women and Africans, the horse’s coat, gold- and silverware, jewellery and precious fabrics.

However, the unanimous rejection of The Death of Sardanapalus at the Salon led to a period of doubt, a questioning of his excessive virtuosity: ‘the infernal facility of the brush’.

BYRON’S VIEW OF WAR

For the young Delacroix, the depiction of war was a key challenge of history painting. The decade of military campaigns that ended in 1814, when he was still at school, had endowed this genre of painting with a particular prestige, strictly controlled by Napoleonic propaganda. Two painters he admired – his friend Théodore Géricault, and Antoine-Jean Gros, from whom he drew inspiration for The Battle of Nancy – had managed to reconcile the celebration of heroism and the horror of war.

When Delacroix resolved to take over from them, his new reference was the English poet Lord Byron and the latter’s involvement in the Greek War of Independence – the subject of Delacroix’s masterpiece Massacres at Chios, reworked in numerous compositions inspired by Byron.

Eugène Delacroix, Young Orphan Girl in the Cemetery. Musée du Louvre, Paris © RMN-Grand Palais (musée du Louvre) / Mathieu

Eugène Delacroix, Massacres at Chios. Musée du Louvre, Paris © RMN-Grand Palais (musée du Louvre) / Stéphane Maréchalle / Adrien Didierjean

8 ENGLISH CONNECTIONS

Delacroix was familiar with Italian and Dutch art from an early age through his visits to museums and collection of prints. However, he never went to Rome and, despite his admiration for Peter Paul Rubens, did not visit the latter’s homeland of Flanders until 1839. His first trip abroad was in 1825 to England, a destination prompted by a more flourishing art market than that of Paris, by his friendship with the English artists (Thales Fielding, Richard Parkes Bonington) he had met before leaving for London, and by his interest in the landscapes of John Constable and portraits by Thomas Lawrence that he had seen in Paris. Delacroix admired their freshness and virtuosity and was impressed by their freedom from the constraints of hierarchy and from the compartmentalisation of pictorial genres, still rigidly defined in France. Following their example, he turned his attention to the so-called ‘minor’ categories (landscapes, portraiture, still lifes and animal scenes) and experimented with blending them: a portrait or still life combined with a landscape, or an animal scene given the grandeur of a large formal portrait, such as the Young Tiger Playing with its Mother.

Eugène Delacroix, Portrait of Baron Louis-Auguste Schwiter. National Gallery, London © The National Gallery, Londres

Eugène Delacroix, Still Life with a Lobster. Musée du Louvre, Paris © RMN-Grand Palais (musée du Louvre) / Stéphane Maréchalle

9 1832: MOROCCO, A NEW ROME

From January to July 1832, Delacroix accompanied the Comte de Mornay on a diplomatic mission to Tangier and Meknes in Morocco, followed by stays in Seville and Algiers.

Delacroix, who was already famous, set out in search of new inspiration with no specific artistic project in mind. Once in North Africa, he felt he had travelled more in time than in space: he saw Moroccan society as an authentic surviving reflection of ancient Greece and Rome. He returned to France with notebooks full of drawings and writings that added two new strings to his bow: the ability to paint scenes from classical history that he had seen reincarnated in Morocco, and to depict scenes of contemporary daily life, ennobled by the timelessness of North Africa. He could thus avoid the social and aesthetic issues that might be raised by images of urban or rural life in contemporary France – subjects that Delacroix considered unsuitable for his painting.

With Women of Algiers in their Apartment, exhibited at the Salon of 1834, Delacroix was able to explore the decorative force of his painting without depending on drama and passion.

THE NEED TO DO THINGS IN A BIG WAY... THE EXPERIENCE OF MURAL PAINTING

Delacroix’s original plan – to enter the Louvre via the Salon – was successful, despite being hindered a little in 1828 by the scandal of The Death of Sardanapalus.

From 1833 onwards, his work was reinvigorated by a commission from the minister Adolphe Thiers – an acquaintance since 1822 – to paint a mural in the Salon du Roi at the Palais-Bourbon. This first project was soon followed by a series of other murals: for the libraries of the Palais du Luxembourg (1840) and the Palais Bourbon, for the Galerie d’Apollon in the Louvre (1849, visible on Level 1 of the Sully wing) and for the Hôtel de Ville (1851).

Delacroix acquired a taste for this activity, which associated his painting with prestigious Parisian monuments while allowing him to reform the laborious allegory genre and propose his view of world history.

It also enabled him to compare himself to his illustrious predecessors, Rubens and Charles Le Brun in particular. These large decorative panels, irremovable by nature, are represented here by sketches. Their monumentality is echoed by the paintings he proposed to the Salons during the same period, such as Medea about to Murder her Children – a means for Delacroix to keep the press and public informed of the evolution of his painting through contact with architecture and tradition.

Eugène Delacroix, Women of Algiers in Their Apartment. Musée du Louvre, Paris © RMN-Grand Palais (musée du Louvre) / Franck Raux

Eugène Delacroix, Medea About to Murder Her Children. Palais des Beaux-Arts, Lille © RMN- Grand Palais / Stéphane Maréchalle 10 WILD ANIMALS AND FLOWERS: AN EBULLIENCE OF DECORATION

At the Salon of 1849, the new republican regime rewarded young painters such as Gustave Courbet and Rosa Bonheur for their depictions of rural reality while Delacroix, who had just turned 50, stood apart with sumptuous floral compositions illustrating the expressive power of colour.

Meanwhile, following the example of Rubens, he began to explore the theme of big game hunting; this research culminated in the spectacular Lion Hunt which he completed for the Universal Exhibition of 1855, where his work was a triumph.

The appearance of decorative themes such as hunting and flowers in Delacroix’s work around 1848–1849 seems logical, bearing in mind that he knew of his forthcoming commissions to decorate the central panel of the ceiling in the Louvre’s Galerie d’Apollon, designed in the 1660s by Charles Le Brun.

Eugène Delacroix, Basket of Flowers. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York Image © The Metropolitan Museum of Art

DARKNESS AND PAIN: AN ASCETIC PALETTE

Delacroix’s art was extraordinarily full of contrasts in the 1840s. Before the explosion of flowers in 1849, he had exhibited entirely different paintings at the Salons of 1847 and 1848: Christ on the Cross and Christ at the Tomb depict the martyr’s suffering, with a layout borrowed from Rubens, Rembrandt or Prud’hon and an austere chiaroscuro echoing the Caravaggesque style of the 17th century.

Never before had Delacroix limited the expressive possibilities of his palette to such a narrow range of colours, in order to produce a work of such touching pathos; never before had he worked so hard on the sketch and overall unity at the expense of accessory detail. The artist, who started writing his journal again at this time, had finally proved to himself that he was capable of overcoming what he called the ‘facility of the brush’ and of taming his palette – ‘an instrument that only plays what I want it to play’.

Delacroix’s experience of mural painting seems to have inspired this tendency, in which he developed the study of religious pathos he had begun with his mural of the Pietà (1843–1844) for the Paris church of Saint-Denys-du-Saint- Sacrement. 11 THEMES AND VARIATIONS: THE USE OF MEMORY

The complexity of Delacroix’s artistic maturity stems from the fact that he often reworked his previous compositions and favourite themes in smaller-scale works, thereby confusing the timeline of his oeuvre by returning to his personal repertoire of images. Many of these repetitions were produced in response to commissions from an ever-increasing number of art dealers and admirers of his work, but Delacroix always endeavoured to create distinctive versions. He also engaged in this activity for his own pleasure; in his variations on the theme of Hamlet, for example, he switched to and fro between painting and engraving, keeping a certain detachment with regard to his subjects. Some of the latter were considerably outdated, such as those based on Walter Scott’s historical novels or Lord Byron’s Oriental tales.

With age, the pleasure he derived from this artistic experimentation was enhanced by his use of memory: to retrace his own steps, reconsider his youthful impressions, evaluate the effect of the passing of time on his own work.

1855–1863: TO BE BOLD, WHEN ONE HAS A PAST TO COMPROMISE…

The retrospective devoted to Delacroix at the Universal Exhibition of 1855 brought an awareness of his status as a national icon: showered with praise, he was finally elected a member of the French Academy of Fine Arts two years later. However, when he reappeared at the Salon of 1859, the critics were disconcerted. Having grown accustomed to praising his large Romantic works, they were perplexed by the smaller paintings he exhibited, many of which – such as Ovid among the Scythians – were tinged with nostalgia. His imaginary landscapes, inspired by close study of natural effects of light and colour, were not admired; his subjects based on the works of Tasso or Ariosto, such as Marphise and the Mistress of Pinabello, seemed old-fashioned.

Delacroix aimed to reconcile the freedom of his painting style with his respect for the great texts that had underpinned the cultural heritage of Europe since antiquity. He objected to the painting of Gustave Courbet, whom he knew well, considering his realism striking but futile in comparison with the virtues of memory, the cornerstone of his creativity. The filter of memory unifies and naturally dignifies the images it constructs. True to his Voltairian spirit, Delacroix cultivated the garden of his imagination, expressed in the form of microcosms painted on canvas; as he wrote on the last page of his journal, ‘the great artist roams his domain, and there he offers you a feast to his own taste’.

Eugène Delacroix, Othello and Desdemona. National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa © Photo : MBAC

Eugène Delacroix, Ovid among the Scythians. National Gallery, London © The National Gallery, Londres

12 DELACROIX.A PORTRAIT

FAMILY AND FRIENDS

Eugène Delacroix, the youngest child of a bourgeois family, was born in Charenton (near Paris) but grew up in Marseille and Bordeaux in the luxurious residences to which his father was entitled as prefect (a high government official). His mother, Victoire, was related to Jean-François Oeben and Henri-François Riesener, the finest cabinetmakers of the court of Versailles; his father, Charles, was a deputy, ambassador and minister, and a prefect at the time of his death in 1804. His brothers had distinguished careers in the Napoleonic army: the elder became a general and baron of the Empire; the younger died a colonel at the Battle of Friedland. But Delacroix’s situation changed after 1814, when he found himself orphaned and impoverished by his family’s unfortunate investments; he consequently intensified his friendships (with Pierret, Soulier, Piron, Rivet and Guillemardet). When his brother died in 1845, Eugène was the only surviving Delacroix, and he looked to his distant cousins to keep his family roots alive. In the 1840s he began to entrust his private affairs to his Breton housekeeper, Jenny Le Guillou, whom he admired for her good sense, artistic sensibility and unfailing devotion. She was at his side when he died, on 13 August 1863.

DELACROIX IN SOCIETY

There were not many painters in Delacroix’s artistic circle. He was less in search of colleagues than of great minds, such as the writers Alexandre Dumas and George Sand, the composer Frédéric Chopin, the curator Frédéric Villot, the journalists Philippe Burty and Théophile Gautier, and the politician Adolphe Thiers – relationships that reflect his passion for literature and music. Although he far preferred relaxed gatherings with friends, he understood the importance of connections to further his career. He therefore frequented salons, attended society events, and was a member of the Paris city council and the jury of the Salon during the Second Empire. With his upbringing and background Delacroix was nostalgic for the Empire, but his politics were liberal. Sceptical and averse to any kind of disorder, he mistrusted the masses; yet although he cultivated good relations with people in the political sphere who could help him obtain important commissions, he always kept a careful distance from power. From the Directory to the Second Empire, the brutal collapse of seven political regimes in turn taught him to protect himself from the storms that shatter political elites.

Eugène Delacroix, Self-Portrait with Green Vest. Musée du Louvre, Paris © RMN-Grand Palais (musée du Louvre) / Michel Urtado

13 DELACROIX THE TRAVELLER

Delacroix was not an adventurer by nature. He agreed to travel to Morocco in 1832 because he would be accompa- nying a diplomatic mission that would pay for his expenses and provide the best guarantee of comfort and safety – with no requirement of work in exchange. His other trips abroad, made on his own initiative, took him no further than England (1825), the Netherlands (1839 and 1850) and Germany (1850 and 1855), for reasons that were not pri- marily artistic: Rubens’s religious masterpieces motivated his visits to Antwerp, Mechelen and Brussels, but he went to London out of curiosity and friendship, and to the Rhineland spas (Bad Ems and Baden-Baden) for reasons of health. With age, Delacroix developed a taste for travelling France in search of places connected to his family roots and happy childhood memories: the Normandy coast, Bordeaux, the Touraine and Lot regions, and finally, the Ar- gonne, birthplace of the Delacroix family. Although it was a lifelong dream, he never went to Italy, considered the homeland of the arts – for financial reasons at first,nd a later for lack of time or a travelling companion.

DELACROIX THE WRITER

Throughout his life, writing was a constant activity for Delacroix, complementary to his painting. He copied or tran- slated the work of authors who fired his imagination such as Dante, Byron, Goethe and Shakespeare. He was a bril- liant letter writer who delighted his friends with his lively mind and a perceptiveness beyond his years. With fame came a desire to cross swords with the press: in 1829, he published articles in which he attacked art critics, analysed the old masters and shared his reflections on the relativity of beauty and the difficulty of defining it. His most important written work is his Journal. The spontaneous and intimate tone of 1822–1824 gave way to a more reserved and philosophical style when he began writing it again in 1847. The Journal is a highly personal account of the era, a way for him to publicise his artistic convictions in the form of a Dictionary of the Fine Arts (which he never finished), and a means of gaining self-knowledge over the years. Delacroix made a point of keeping everything, from his school notebooks to his last diaries, probably with a view to handing down to posterity a full and sincere account of himself – the kind of account he would have liked to read about painters of the past.

Eugène Delacroix, The Sea from the Heights of Dieppe. Musée du Louvre, Paris © RMN-Grand Palais (musée du Louvre) / Philippe Fuzeau

14 Exhibition Delacroix (1798–1863) March 29–July 23, 2018 Hall Napoléon VISUALS AVAILABLE FOR USE

The Musée du Louvre has negotiated the use of visuals before and for the duration of the exhibition (March 29–July 23, 2018), exclusively for the promotion of the exhibition Delacroix (1798–1863). Please include the photo credits and send a copy of the article to the following address: [email protected]

1_Eugène Delacroix, July 28, 1830: Liberty Leading the People. 1830. 1831 Salon. Oil on canvas. 260 x 325 cm. Musée du Louvre, Paris © RMN-Grand Palais (musée du Louvre) / Michel Urtado

2_Eugène Delacroix, The Barque of Dante. 1822. 1822 Salon. Oil on canvas. 189 x 246 cm. Musée du Louvre, Paris © RMN-Grand Palais (musée du Louvre) / Franck Raux

3_Eugène Delacroix, Woman with a Parrot. Between 1826 and 1829. Oil on canvas. 24.5 x 32.5 cm. Musée des Beaux-Arts, Lyon © Lyon MBA / Photo Alain Basset.

16 4_Eugène Delacroix, Portrait of Baron Louis-Auguste 5_ Eugène Delacroix, Massacres at Chios. 1824. 1824 Salon. Oil on Schwiter. 1826. Rejected at the 1827 Salon. Oil on canvas. 419 × 354 cm. Musée du Louvre, Paris © RMN-Grand Palais canvas. 217 x 143 cm. National Gallery, London © The (musée du Louvre) / Stéphane Maréchalle / Adrien Didierjean National Gallery, Londres

6_Eugène Delacroix, The Death of Sardanapalus. 1827. 1827-1828 Salon. Oil on canvas. 392 x 496 cm. Musée du Louvre, Paris © Musée du Louvre, dist. RMN - Grand Palais / Angèle Dequier

17 7_Eugène Delacroix, Macbeth and the Witches 8_Eugène Delacroix, Still Life with a Lobster. 1827 Salon. Oil on canvas. 80 x 106.5 (first state, before the letter and signature). cm. Musée du Louvre, Paris © RMN-Grand Palais (musée du Louvre) / Stéphane 1825. Lithograph. 33 x 25.7 cm. Städelsche Maréchalle Kunstinstitut und Städtische Galerie, Frankfurt © Städel Museum - U. Edelmann - ARTOTHEK

9_Eugène Delacroix, Young Tiger Playing with Its Mother. 1830. 1831 Salon. Oil on canvas. 130 x 195 cm. Musée du Louvre, Paris © RMN-Grand Palais (musée du Louvre) / Franck Raux

18 10_Eugène Delacroix, Young Orphan Girl in the Cemetery. 1824. 11_Eugène Delacroix, Greece on the Ruins of 1824 Salon. Oil on canvas. 65.5 x 54.3 cm. Musée du Louvre, Paris Missolonghi. 1826. Oil on canvas. 209 x 147 cm. Musée © RMN-Grand Palais (musée du Louvre) / Mathieu Rabeau des Beaux-Arts, Bordeaux © Musée des Beaux-Arts, ville de Bordeaux. Cliché L . Gauthier, F . Deval

12_Eugène Delacroix, The Death of Charles the Bold at the Battle of Nancy. 1831. 1834 Salon. Oil on canvas. 237 x 356 cm. Musée des Beaux-Arts, Nancy © P. Mignot

19 13_Eugène Delacroix, Self-Portrait with Green Vest. Circa 1837. Oil on canvas. 65 x 54 cm. Musée du Louvre, Paris © RMN-Grand Palais (musée du Louvre) / Michel Urtado

14_Eugène Delacroix, Apollo Victorious over Python (sketch for the ceiling of the Galerie d’Apollon). 1850. Oil on canvas. 137 x 102 cm. Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, Brussels © MRBAB, Bruxelles / photo : J. Geleyns - Art Photography

20 15_Eugène Delacroix, Women of Algiers in Their Apartment. 1833- 1834. 1834 Salon. Oil on canvas. 180 x 229 cm. Musée du Louvre, Paris © RMN-Grand Palais (musée du Louvre) / Franck Raux

16_Eugène Delacroix, Medea About to Murder Her Children. 1838. 1838 Salon. Oil on canvas. 206 x 165 cm. Palais des Beaux- Arts, Lille © RMN-Grand Palais / Stéphane Maréchalle

21 18_Eugène Delacroix, Basket of Flowers. 1848-1849. 1849 Salon. Oil on canvas. 107 x 142 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York Image © The Metropolitan Museum of Art

19_Eugène Delacroix, Lion Hunt. 1854-1855. Exposition Universelle (1855). Oil on canvas. 173 x 361 cm. Musée des Beaux-Arts, Bordeaux © Musée des Beaux-Arts, ville de Bordeaux. Cliché L . Gauthier, F . Deval

22 20_Eugène Delacroix, Othello and Desdemona. 1847-1849. 1849 Salon. Oil on canvas. 51 x 62 cm. National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa © Photo : MBAC

21_Eugène Delacroix, The Sea from the Heights of Dieppe. Circa 1852. Oil on panel. 35 x 51 cm. Musée du Louvre, Paris © RMN-Grand Palais (musée du Louvre) / Philippe Fuzeau

23 22_Eugène Delacroix, Christ on the Sea of Galilee. 1854. Oil on canvas. 59.8 x 73.3 cm. The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore © Baltimore, The Walters Art Museum

23_Eugène Delacroix, Marphise and the Mistress of Pinabello. 1850-1852. Oil on canvas. 82 x 101 cm. The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore © Baltimore, The Walters Art Museum

24 24_Eugène Delacroix, Ovid among the Scythians. 1856-1859. 1859 Salon. Oil on canvas. 87 x 130 cm. National Gallery, London © The National Gallery, Londres

25_Eugène Delacroix, Christ in the Garden of Olives. 1824-1827. 1827-1828 Salon. Oil on canvas. 294 x 362 cm. Church of Saint-Paul- Saint-Louis, COARC, Paris © COARC / Roger-Viollet 25

Kinoshita Group, mécène du musée du Louvre depuis 2011, apporte son soutien à des expositions, des travaux de recherche et de grands projets de construction.

Aujourd’hui, nous sommes très honorés d’être associés à l’exposition ≪ Vermeer et les maîtres de la peinture de genre ≫. Ces peintres hollandais du XVIIe siècle, qui ont su représenter si magnifiquement des scènes de la vie quotidienne, forment collectivement un véritable réseau dans lequel Vermeer apparaît comme l’une des personnalités les plus créatives et les plus influentes.

En 2017, il y aura vingt-sept ans que Kinoshita Group s’est lancé sur le marché de l’immobilier.

Nous étendons actuellement nos activités à de nouveaux secteurs : construction, logements locatifs, soins aux personnes âgées et aux enfants, services médicaux, cinéma, musique et édition.

La mission que nous nous sommes donnée est de contribuer à l’édification d’une vie plus riche et plus harmonieuse – notamment par le truchement de la culture – et de transmettre ces valeurs aux générations futures. Les entreprises à vocation sociale et culturelle sont nombreuses en Europe, malheureusement moins au Japon.

En soutenant ≪ Vermeer et les maîtres de la peinture de genre ≫, Kinoshita Group entend faciliter l’accès du plus grand nombre aux richesses d’un patrimoine historique et culturel qui appartient à l’humanité tout entière.

Kinoshita Group

26 Deloitte, mécène de l’exposition « Vermeer et les maîtres de la peinture de genre »

Partenaire de longue date du musée du Louvre, Deloitte poursuit son engagement en faveur de la culture. Dans un monde en profonde mutation, ce sont l’innovation, la créativité, la diversité et l’agilité qui permettront aux organisations de se transformer. Ces notions sont au cœur de l’identité des 244 000 collaborateurs de Deloitte dans le monde – 10 300 en France – qui partagent avec l’art l’ambition d’avoir un impact durable.

Avec Vermeer le réalisme atteint sa perfection. La très belle exposition « Vermeer et les maîtres de la peinture de genre » nous fait découvrir les œuvres exceptionnelles des grands maîtres de l’école hollandaise mettant en scène la vie « quotidienne », magnifiquement théâtralisée, de l’élite de la république des Provinces-Unies. Partenaire du musée du Louvre depuis de nombreuses années, Deloitte est fier d’apporter sa contribution au rayonnement et à la persistance de l’univers de Vermeer et des maîtres du siècle d’or hollandais en qualité de mécène de cette exposition majeure.

L’engagement de Deloitte pour les arts est le reflet de ses valeurs : excellence, intégrité, qualité et éthique qui sont le socle de son rôle de tiers de confiance.

Animé par la volonté d’avoir un impact durable, d’engendrer des transformations sociales, environnementales et économiques constructives et durables, Deloitte a fait de l’éducation et du développement solidaire ses axes prioritaires. Depuis 10 ans, Deloitte, à travers sa fondation d’entreprise, s’engage en faveur de l’égalité des chances et multiplie les approches pour faciliter l’insertion des jeunes dans le monde du travail. L’accès à la culture est l’un des fers de lance de son action. En 2016 en France, 2 690 collaborateurs se sont mobilisés à travers les actions de la Fondation d’entreprise Deloitte et 17 796 heures ont été consacrées à des projets et travaux bénévoles. La créativité, l’ouverture et la proximité sont au cœur de l’offre pluridisciplinaire de Deloitte. Un programme ambitieux de développement des intrapreneurs a vu le jour en 2014 pour favoriser l’innovation au sein même de Deloitte et aider ses collaborateurs dans la concrétisation de nouvelles idées. 16 nouvelles offres ont ainsi vu le jour ces deux dernières années. «Être présent là où s’expriment les forces, les formes, les modes de pensée et d’action d’hier et d’aujourd’hui – par extension, la science, l’art et la culture, c’est investir dans l’avenir. » commente Alain Pons, Président de Deloitte France. « Les ruptures technologiques engendrent de profondes transformations de l’économie, des organisations, des métiers. Elles sont un pré requis, mais plus que jamais, c’est la capacité à créer ensemble, à communiquer, qui feront la différence. »

À propos de Deloitte Deloitte fait référence à un ou plusieurs cabinets membres de Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited, société de droit anglais (« private company limited by guarantee »), et à son réseau de cabinets membres constitués en entités indépendantes et juridiquement distinctes. Pour en savoir plus sur la structure légale de Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited et de ses cabinets membres, consulter www.deloitte.com/about. En France, Deloitte SAS est le cabinet membre de Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited, et les services professionnels sont rendus par ses filiales et ses affiliés.

Deloitte fournit des services professionnels dans les domaines de l’audit, de la fiscalité, du consulting et du financial advisory à ses clients des secteurs public et privé, quel que soit leur domaine d’activité. Fort d’un réseau de firmes membres dans plus de 150 pays, Deloitte allie des compétences de niveau international à un service de grande qualité afin d’aider ses clients à répondre à leurs enjeux les plus complexes. Nos 244 000 professionnels sont animés par un même objectif, faire de Deloitte la référence en matière d’excellence de service.

En France, Deloitte mobilise un ensemble de compétences diversifiées pour répondre aux enjeux de ses clients, de toutes tailles et de tous secteurs – des grandes entreprises multinationales aux microentreprises locales, en passant par les entreprises moyennes. Fort de l’expertise de ses 10 300 collaborateurs et associés, Deloitte en France est un acteur de référence en audit, risk advisory, consulting, financial advisory, juridique & fiscal et expertise comptable, dans le cadre d’une offre pluridisciplinaire et de principes d’action en phase avec les exigences de notre environnement.