The Tribute Money
Eugène Delacroix French
Not on view
On the strength of his work in the Salon du Roi, Delacroix received a commission to decorate the Palais Bourbon’s newly completed library. This drawing on tracing paper represents part of his process of refinement in determining a composition for a pendentive devoted to the biblical subject of The Tribute Money, in which Jesus tells Peter he will find money for the temple tax in a fish’s mouth. Whereas Delacroix painted the Salon du Roi himself, he had the help of assistants for the library, which explains in part why more exacting drawings for this project exist.