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

Eugène Delacroix French

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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.

Studies of a Rearing Horse Attacked by a Lion and a Lion Wrestling with a Serpent, Eugène Delacroix (French, Charenton-Saint-Maurice 1798–1863 Paris), Pen and brown ink, brush and brown wash, on writing paper

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Studies of a Rearing Horse Attacked by a Lion and a Lion Wrestling with a Serpent, Eugène Delacroix (French, Charenton-Saint-Maurice 1798–1863 Paris), Pen and brown ink, brush and brown wash, on writing paper
Studies of a Rearing Horse Attacked by a Lion and a Lion Wrestling with a Serpent, Eugène Delacroix (French, Charenton-Saint-Maurice 1798–1863 Paris), Pen and brown ink, brush and brown wash, on writing paper

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