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.
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Dimensions:36 folios, each sheet: 4 15/16 x 7 11/16 in. (12.5 x 19.5 cm)
Classifications:Drawings, Sketchbooks
Credit Line:Gift of Alexander and Gregoire Tarnopol, 1969
Object Number:69.165.2
Inscription: On the inner covers are notes in Delacroix's hand in graphite and brown ink: Librairie de Pichonet Didier / quai des Augustins no. 47 / Oeuvres posthumes et inédites de Me Guizot / Conseils de morale ou essai sur l'homme, / les moeurs, les caractères, les femmes, l'éducation / Pompe funèbre du duc Charles III / de Lorraine par DelaRuelle / Entrée du Henry 2 a Nancy / par le même / le Vade mecum.. livre de médecine / chez le docteur d [crossed out] Chez Persan libr. rue du coq no. 11. / Charon: de la sagesse, liv. I. Chap. XLII. Sur le mariage / Pompe funebre du duc Charles de Lorraine et / autres gravures de Laruelle, graveur Lorrain / Me Toly rue neuve St. Eustache no. 36 / pour Charles le Téméraire / Le livre des echecs amoureux. dedié à Louis [illegible word].
The artist's estate sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, Paris, February 17-29, 1864, probably part of no. 664; Alexander Tarnopoland his brother Grégoire Tarnopol, New York (until 1969)
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Classicism and Romanticism. French Drawings and Prints," September 15–November 1, 1970.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Drawings Recently Acquired, 1969–1971," January 18–April 16, 1972.
Paris. Cabinet des dessins, Musée du Louvre. "Dessins français du Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York de David à Picasso," October 25, 1973–January 7, 1974.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Nineteenth Century French Drawings and Prints," June 23–August 23, 1981.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Landscapes by French Artists, 1780–1880," November 17, 1987–February 14, 1988.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Eugène Delacroix (1798–1863): Paintings, Drawings, and Prints from North American Collections," April 10–June 16, 1991.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Drawings and Prints: Selections from the Permanent Collection," February 26–May 5, 1996.
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Tours. "Delacroix en Touraine," May 15, 1998–July 31, 1998.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Delacroix," September 17, 2018–January 6, 2019.
MMA 1991.72
Jacob Bean "One Hundredth Annual Report of the Trustees for the Fiscal Year 1969-1970, Reports of the Departments: Drawings." in The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, n.s. vol. 29, no. 2, New York, October 1970, pp. 70, 71.
Maurice Sérullaz Musée du Louvre, Cabinet des Dessins, Inventaire Général des Dessins École Française, Dessins d'Eugène Delacroix, 1798-1863. 2 vols., Paris, 1984, Mentioned under numbers 1148, 1149, 1150, pp. 423, 422 (re, ill.
Jacques Olivier Bouffier, The Metropolitan Museum of Art "The Tours Sketchbook of Eugène Delacroix." MMA Journal. vol. 29, New York, 1994, pp. 135-150, ill.
Arlette Sérullaz Le cabinet des dessins: Delacroix. Musée du Louvre, Paris, 1998, pp. 46-47, ill.
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Tours, Philipe Le Leyzour, Sophie Join-Lambert Delacroix en Touraine. Exh. cat., Musée des Beaux-Arts de Tours, May 16-July 31, 1998. Bordeaux, 1998.
Sébastien Allard, Côme Fabre, The Metropolitan Museum of Art Delacroix. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2018, cat. no. 60, pp. 42-43, 47, and 283, ill.
Sébastien Allard, Côme Fabre Delacroix. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2018, cat. no. 60, pp. 43, 283, ill.
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