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Your galleryCrouching Woman
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- Where does your eye go next?
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Follow the sweeping line of the woman’s back into the raised forearm, then notice where the lower body remains only lightly drawn.
This is a study for a figure in Delacroix’s The Death of Sardanapalus, now in the Louvre. Chalk, pastel, and wash concentrate attention on a recoiling body. The figure appears more cropped in the final painting, making this sheet a chance to see an expressive pose developed beyond what the finished composition would retain.
Black and red chalk, with pastel, heightened with white chalk, over wash, on tan wove paper · 24.6 × 31.4 cm · Art Institute of Chicago · Romanticism
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Details and source
- Museum title
- Crouching Woman
- Artist
- Eugène Delacroix French, 1798-1863
- Date
- 1827
- Medium
- Black and red chalk, with pastel, heightened with white chalk, over wash, on tan wove paper
- Dimensions
- 24.6 × 31.4 cm (9 11/16 × 12 3/8 in.)
- Credit line
- Through prior bequest of Mr. and Mrs. Martin A. Ryerson Collection
- Image license
- CC0 1.0 · Public domain
- Museum record
- Art Institute of Chicago
Galler’s rooms and hanging scale are imagined. The image is the museum’s original digital reproduction.