Lion Devouring a Horse
1844
Medium
Lithograph in black on ivory China paper laid down on white wove paper
Dimensions
Image: 17 × 23.5 cm (6 3/4 × 9 5/16 in.); Sheet: 30.5 × 45 cm (12 1/16 × 17 3/4 in.)
Classification
lithograph
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
22905
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
Eugène Delacroix’s black-and-white lithographs are almost coloristic in their dramatic explosions of painterly tone. The artist, violently opposed to the careful linear styles espoused by the Royal Academy (as represented by Jean-August-Dominique Ingres and Jacques-Louis David), not only drew his animal prints directly onto the lithographic stone, but also clawed and scraped into them to create further highlights. This Orientalizing print was made twelve years after a seven-month journey through...
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...