Étude De Chevaux
This conversation is connected to Étude De Chevaux.
Eugène Delacroix was the leading figure of French Romantic painting, and horses were central to his work from the very beginning. He realized while painting Massacre at Chios in 1824 that he needed thorough knowledge of horse anatomy to paint the historical scenes he was after. He visited stables and sketched alongside his friend Théodore Géricault, and his posthumous studio sale in 1864 included thirty-six oil paintings of horses alone. Étude De Chevaux is one of these studies — multiple horses from different angles packed onto a single canvas, some seen from behind, others facing forward, in golds, browns, grays, and whites against a dark ground. It's a working document, the kind of painting that stayed in the studio and was never exhibited during his lifetime.