Combat Between Giaour and the Pasha
1827
Medium
Lithograph in black on ivory wove paper
Dimensions
Image: 35.8 × 26 cm (14 1/8 × 10 1/4 in.); Sheet: 47.5 × 33.9 cm (18 3/4 × 13 3/8 in.)
Classification
lithograph
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
72302
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
Like the poem on which it is based, Lord Byron’s The Giaour (1813), this print exhibits Europeans’ contemporary fascination with the Middle East, a trend known as Orientalism that often depended on stereotypes of violence and sexuality. In the poem, a Venetian giaour (a Turkish term for a non-Muslim) falls in love with Leila, a member of a Turkish harem controlled by the pasha (master), Hassan. When Hassan discovers this affair, he kills Leila. In the scene depicted here, the giaour fights the p...
About the Artist
Eugène Delacroix · 1798–1863
Eugène Delacroix (1798–1863) stands as the defining figure of French Romanticism and a pivotal bridge to modernism. Born in Charenton-Saint-Maurice near Paris, he came from distinguished lineage—his mother descended from the prestigious Oeben-Riesener furniture dynasty, while persistent speculation suggested the statesman Talleyrand may have been his biological father, a theory supported by physic...