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Your galleryLion Hunt
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Start with the rearing horse, then follow the crisscrossing weapons toward the animals and fallen bodies in the foreground.
Delacroix never witnessed a lion hunt. He constructed this scene from studies of landscapes, clothing, and zoo animals, giving an imagined encounter the appearance of closely observed detail. The theatrical struggle reflects European expectations about the Arab world as well as the artist’s ability to organize many bodies in motion.
Oil on canvas · 76.5 × 98.5 cm · Art Institute of Chicago · Romanticism
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Details and source
- Museum title
- Lion Hunt
- Artist
- Eugène Delacroix (French, 1798–1863)
- Date
- 1860–61
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- 76.5 × 98.5 cm (30 × 38 1/2 in.); Framed: 105.5 × 125.8 cm (41 1/2 × 49 1/2 in.)
- Credit line
- Potter Palmer 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.