A bar of Toblerone is also brought to life. The proud posture of the chocolate motivated the graphic designer to turn it into a star – a kind of singing sensation with a chocolate microphone, which was bound to please the client. Though there are two ways of reading this image – it might also be that the Toblerone with silver wavy hair is not singing but about to snack on another Toblerone bar. You are what you eat, you might think, but that will send us down the path of discussing chocolate cannibalism, and we are not going to go there.

This Basel designer did not just promote products of everyday use or consumption – the chemical industry was also a major client. He designed numerous exhibition stands for companies in the chemical industry at the Basel Sample Fair, and he also created the Pavilion for Chemistry at Expo 58 in Brussels. This is also evident in Brun’s poster work. Although a huge variety of products are advertised here, the drafts and posters clearly show that this freelance graphic designer enjoyed placing the advertised product in the limelight, generally with very few words and plenty of wit and colour instead.

    From 1927 to 1930, Donald Brun completed a three-year apprenticeship as an advertising Illustrator under Ernst Keiser, who was a calligraphy teacher back then on the professional graphic design course at the General Vocational School in Basel. This job title of advertising illustrator also describes Brun’s technical approach very well. Rarely did he work with the medium of photography; he almost always designed his posters graphically. This was a philosophy that he also passed on during his many years as a specialist teacher (1946-74) at the Vocational School in Basel. He demanded from his students that the drafts were designed using pencil, ink and brush on paper.

Scissors and glue are also among the tools often used by Brun. He often designed his poster drafts as collages. For example, he used a box of cigars to represent the body of the famous Gauloises rooster. He also used this technique with other birds, such as the beautifully stylish Merrent bird advertising clothing for men and women. Even though clothing fashions change and the techniques used by graphic designers today are different, Donald Brun’s posters still make so many people smile with their rich colours and humour.

This is part 1 of a 4-part series on the works of Donald Brun:

1928 Bader colour lithograph

c1936 So suggestiv  colour lithograph 127 x 89.5 cm

1940s Gevaert Film colour lithograph 128 x 90 cm

1940s Persil colour lithograph 128 x 90 cm

CO-OP Kaffee preiswert und gut (CO-OP coffee is cheap and good) colour lithograph 90 x 64 cm

1944 Das Schaufenster (The Shop Window) colour lithograph 127 x 89 cm

1944 Gevaert rollfilm colour lithograph 127 x 90 cm

1945 Contre-douleurs (Painkilers) colour lithograph 128 x 90 cm

1945 Helvetia, Take one home for your folks colour lithograph 128 x 90 cm

1945 Le No. 11 renseigne (No. 11 provides information) colour lithograph 128 x 90 cm

1945 Rheinbrücke Bâle pour tous vos achats (Rheinbrücke Bâle for all your purchases) colour lithograph 127 x 90 cm

1946 Bata colour lithograph 126 x 90 cm

1946 Bata colour lithograph 126 x 90 cm

1946 Elna (sewing machines) colour lithograph 128 x 90 cm

1946 Frauenstimmrecht Nein (Women's Suffrage, No) colour lithograph 127.5 x 90 cm

1946 Gevaert Film  colour lithograph 127 x 90 cm

1946 Helvetia, Take one home for your folks! 127 x 77.5 cm

1946 Okarbol XEX Wintersoritzung (Winter preparation) colour lithograph 126 x 89.5 cm

1946 Roger & Galle, Paris  colour lithograph 127 x 90 cm

c1946 besser waschen mit Persil (better wash with Persil) colour lithograph 50.3 x 90 cm

c1946 Les Matelas Robusta (Robust Mattresses) colour lithograph 126 x 90 cm

1947 Aronal Vitamin-Zahnpasta colour lithograph on linen 127 x 90 cm

1947 Articoli economici (Cheap items) colour lithograph 90 x 50.3 cm

1947 Gevaert Film colour lithograph 127 x 90 cm

1947 Persil washing powder colour lithograph 128 x 90 cm

1947 Schuhhaus Althaus & Cie (Shoe Shop Althaus & Cie) colour lithograph 128 x 90 cm

1947 Tobler - Chocolat colour lithograph 128 x 90 cm

1947 Vasenol Kinderpuder (Vasenol  children's powder) colour lithograph 100 x 69.5 cm

1948 Dalang Eierteigwaren (Dalang Egg Noodles)  colour lithograph 50.3 x 35.4 cm

1948 Gevaert Roll-Film colour lithograph 126 x 90.5 cm

1948 Persil washing powder colour lithograph 128 x 90 cm

1948 Schaffhauser Wolle (Wool) colour lithograph 125.3 x 88.8 cm

1948 Téléphonez! colour lithograph 128 x 90 cm

1949 Davos (Swiss ski resort)  colour lithograph 101 x 64 cm

1949 Dispos Comme un Oiseau! (Ready Like a Bird - painkillers) colour lithograph on linen 127 x 91 cm

1949 Liebig, Cubes de Bouillon colour lithograph 128 x 90 cm

1949 Parisiennes Maryland cigarettes colour lithograph 128 x 90 cm

n.d. Original draft artwork for a hose advertisement (details not given)  Swiss National Museum, Zürich

n.d. Original draft artwork for a Toblerone advertisement (details not given)  Swiss National Museum, Zürich

Mario Sironi (1885-1961) was an Italian Modernist artist who was active as a painter, sculptor, illustrator, and designer. His typically somber paintings are characterised by massive, immobile forms. In 1922 he was one of the founding members of the Sette di Novecento in Milan and became the leading exponent of the Novecento italiano. Sironi was the chief political caricaturist and illustrator for Mussolini’s official press, Il Popolo d’Italia (1927–33) and La Rivista Illustrata del Popolo d’Italia (1934–39). He authored the influential Manifesto of Mural Painting in 1933. After World War II he returned to easel painting in a style consistent with the abstract Informel movement. In 1956 he was elected member of the Accademia di San Luca. Sironi died in Milan on 13 August 1961. 

For a more comprehensive biography see part 1, and for earlier works by Mario Sironi, see parts 1 - 4 also.

This is part 5 of a 5-part series on the works of Mario Sironi. (Note: Dates were not found for the remaining works in this series. All works pre-date 1961, the year Sironi died).

n.d. Conduttare Tramvai (Tram Driver) pen and ink on paper 19 x 11.7 cm Dallas Museum of Art, Texas

n.d. Dancing on Stage oil on board 29 x 43 cm Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art, London

n.d. Death in the landscape tempera on paper laid down on canvas 16 x 22.5 cm Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art, London

n.d. Drawing for a political cartoon charcoal on paper 27 x 24 cm Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art, London

n.d. Drinkers mixed media on paper 19.9 x 17.8 cm

n.d. Female bust tempera on paper laid down on cardboard 66 x 46.5 cm

n.d. Fiat sketch for a poster

n.d. Figure mixed media on paper laid on canvas 28 x 20.8 cm

n.d. Figures tempera and pencil on paper laid on canvas 31.4 x 42 cm

n.d. Figures tempera, grease pencil and coloured pencils on paper laid down on canvas 30 x 40 cm

n.d. Five Standing figures pencil and gouache on paper (size not given) Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art, London

n.d. Futurist composition tempera on paper laid down on canvas 31 x 21 cm

n.d. Galloping jockey pen, brush and black ink on paper 24.5 x 22.1 cm

n.d. Homes pencil on paper laid down on canvas 21 x 23 cm

n.d. Huts on a hillside oil on paper mounted on board 27.7 x 40 cm Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art, London

n.d. Interior study with wall paintings oil on canvas laid down on paper 22.5 x 31.5 cm

n.d. Landscape with church graphite pencil, black ink and black chalk on paper 27 x 39 cm

n.d. Landscape with figure, rock and tree tempera on paper laid on cardboard 31.5 x 22.6 cm

n.d. Man with top hat charcoal on paper  19 x 20.5 cm Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art, London

n.d. Mountain and trees oil on canvas 65 x 50 cm

n.d. Mountains and house oil on canvas 40 x 50 cm

n.d. Mountains oil on board 40 x 38 cm

n.d. Nude female with raised arms black pencil and polychrome watercolour on paper 30 x 19.5 cm

n.d. Nude woman oil on paper laid down on canvas 52 x 59 cm

n.d. Original plate for an unpublished illustration for "Il Popolo d’Italia" mixed technique on paper on canvas 34.5 x 33 cm

n.d. Scene with man on the ground pierced by a spear black ink and polychrome tempera on paper 26 x 24 cm

n.d. Seated male figure tempera, ink and pencil on paper laid on canvas 50 x 35 cm

n.d. Sketches of figures: Compositional sketches graphite with gouache and watercolour on beige wove paper 34.5 x 49.9 cm The Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio

n.d. Study for decorated Interior mixed media on cardboard 27.5 x 53.8 cm

n.d. Study for figures graphite and charcoal on straw paper 40 x 51 cm

n.d. Figure study ink on paper 29.9 x 1919 cm

n.d. The boxer gouache on paper 39.9 x 24.9 cm

n.d. Three figures oil on paper laid down on canvas 26 x 30.5 cm

n.d. Three mountains oil on canvas 23 x 28 cm Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art, London

n.d. Two figures mixed media on paper laid down on cardboard 42 x 31 cm

n.d. Two figures tempera and pencil on paper laid down on canvas 27.6 x 21.2 cm

n.d. Two figures tempera, ink and pencil on paper laid down on canvas 53 x 35.4 cm

n.d. Two heads black chalk and watercolour 46.9 x 38.1 cm Los Angeles County Museum of Art, CA

n.d. Two Figures ink and watercolour on paper laid down on canvas 30.1 x 24.1 cm Los Angeles County Museum of Art, CA

n.d. Untitled gouache (on?) 24.7 x 33.3 cm Los Angeles County Museum of Art, CA

n.d. Untitled ink and diluted tempera on paper 17 x 20 cm

n.d. Untitled mixed technique on paper 36 x 49 cm

n.d. Untitled pencil and watercolour on paper 29.5 x 20.9 cm Los Angeles County Museum of Art, CA

n.d. Untitled pencil and watercolour 25.4 x 35.5 cm Los Angeles County Museum of Art, CA

n.d. Untitled pencil and watercolour 31.7 x 38.7 cm Los Angeles County Museum of Art, CA

n.d. Wall composition with houses and dome oil and tempera on paper laid on canvas 64.3 x 51.6 cm

n.d. Where the Alps begin unidentified paint medium 34.5 x 49.9 cm The Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio

For a more comprehensive biography see part 1, and for earlier works by Mario Sironi, see parts 1 - 3 also.

This is part 4 of a 5-part series on the works of Mario Sironi:

1947 Composition  oil on paper laid down on canvas 101 x 81 cm

c1947 Bust of a grotesque figure mixed media on paper laid down on canvas 19.5 x 16.8 cm

c1947 Great composition tempera and oil on canvas 121 x 164 cm Boschi di Stefano Home-Museum, Milan

c1947 Landscape with mountains pencil on paper 16.7 x 22.2 cm

c1947 Statues in niches oil on cardboard 49.5 x 61 cm

1948 Child mixed media on paper laid down on hardboard (size not given)

1948 Composition tempera on cardboard 30 x 24.5 cm

1948 Studies for Three Figures pen and watercolour on paper 12.9 x 22 cm

1948-50 Interior with figures tempera on cardboard 45 x 64 cm

1949 Composition oil on board 80 x 60 cm Art Institute of Chicago, IL

1949 Composition tempera and mixed media on paper laid on canvas 33.5 x 55 cm

1949 Composition with figures mixed media on paper 31.5 x 26.5 cm

c1949 Composition with figures, horse and rider mixed media on paper 27.7 x 30 cm

1950 Composition with Knight tempera on paper laid down on cardboard 21.3 x 50.9 cm

c1950 Composition black ink, brown wash, black chalk 24 x 33.6 cm

c1950 Composition oil and pencil on paper laid down on canvas 39.7 x 49.7 cm

c1950 Landscape with trees and house tempera and mixed media on paper laid down on canvas 29 x 41 cm

1950s Archaic landscape mixed media on paper (size not given)

1950s Composition  China ink and tempera on paper laid on cardboard 20.5 x 50.5 cm

1950s Composition tempera and mixed media on paper laid down on canvas 23.5 x 36.2 cm

1950s Composition with bottles tempera, ink and graphite on paper 32 x 44 cm

1950s Composition with figures tempera and ink on paper laid on canvas 36.3 x 52.5 cm

1950s Composition with two figures mixed media on paper laid on canvas 48 x 32 cm

1950s Female figure tempera and mixed media on paper

1950s Seated female figure  tempera and mixed media on paper laid on canvas 28 x 20 cm

1950s Seated Woman  pencil on paper (size not given)

c1951 Landscape with mountains tempera, ink and pencil on paper laid on canvas 25 x 35 cm

1952 Mountains tempera on canvassed paper 22 x 29 cm

c1952 Composition with mountains and trees tempera and mixed media on paper 30 x 49 cm

c1952 Composition with rock and tree tempera and mixed media on paper laid down on canvas 20.9 x 29.5 cm

1953-54 Composition oil on canvas 90 x 100 cm

c1953 Alpine Landscape oil on canvas 50 x 60 cm

c1953 Composition - characters oil on canvas 89.8 x 110 cm

1954 FIAT 1900 A advertisement

c1954 Head tempera and mixed media on paper 47.7 x 33.2 cm

1955-57 Composition oil on canvas 100 x 70.3 cm

c1955 Composition tempera and mixed media on paper 35 x 38.8 cm

c1955 Composition tempera on paper laid down on canvas 53 x 70 cm

c1955 Composition with figures of musicians, female head and bust mixed media on paper 32.2 x 43.5 cm

c1956 Two figures oil, tempera and pencil on paper laid down on canvas 53 x 30.5 cm

c1958 Composition oil on canvas 40 x 49.8 cm

c1958 Composition with female nude oil on canvas 90 x 70 cm

c1960 Composition tempera and mixed media on paper 34.5 x 48.2 cm

1961 Europe, here is the enemy pencil and ink on paper 38 x 35 cm

Note: Dates were not found for the remaining works in this series. All works pre-date 1961, the year Sironi died:

n.d. Allegory of politics mixed media on paper 32 x 43 cm

n.d. Composition mixed media on paper 35 x 22 cm

n.d. Composition tempera on cardboard 29 x 39 cm

n.d. Composition with boat and figures tempera and mixed media on paper laid down on canvas 34.5 x 51.5 cm

 

For a more comprehensive biography see part 1, and for earlier works by Mario Sironi, see parts 1 & 2 also.

This is part 3 of a 5-part series on the works of Mario Sironi:

c1924 Man and Python (drawing for a political cartoon) Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art, London

c1932 Study for a monumental work tempera and mixed media on paper laid down on canvas 48.4 x 67.8 cm

1933 Poster of the V Triennale study pencil on paper

1933 Poster of the V Triennale, Milan

1933 Work tempera and mixed media on paper

c1933 Composition. Study for a monumental work tempera and mixed media on paper 36 x 43.7 cm

1934-35 Leader on horseback mixed media on paper 288 x 275.4 cm Museo di arte moderna e contempotanea di Trento e Rovereto

c1934 Woman with spade tempera on canvas 65 x 43 cm

1935 Italy between the Arts and Sciences

This mural (fresco) forms the backdrop to the stage in the Great Hall of Sapienza University of Rome. Combining elements of both classical and modernist art, the mural depicts a central figure of Italy portrayed as a goddess at war, flanked by allegorical figures representing the arts and sciences: Astronomy, Mineralogy, Botany, Geography, Architecture, Letters, Painting, and History.

The mural went through a series of changes due to its association with fascism. In 1950, the fresco was repainted, covering up fascist symbols. A restoration project in 2015 removed the overpainting, revealing the original iconography.

1935 Study for the fresco "Italy between the Arts and Sciences" tempera on paper laid down on canvas 52.7 x 72.3 cm

1935 Study for the fresco "Italy between the Arts and Sciences"

Italy between the Arts and Sciences fresco

1935 Winged Victory  mixed media on paper laid on canvas 18.2 x 25 cm

c1935 Group of figures pencil on paper Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art, London

1936 The worker mixed media on construction paper mounted on canvas 325 x 202 cm

1936-38 The Empire mixed media on construction paper mounted on canvas 174 x 274 cm Romana Sironi Collection, Rome

c1936 Five figures tempera on canvas 45.1 x 60.3 cm Tate Gallery, London

1937 Triumphal Arch polychrome tempera on paper 30.6 x 22.7 cm

1938 Untitled pencil and tempera on cardboard 47.6 x 38.7 cm

c1938 Environment study  tempera and ink on paper 31.5 x 28.3 cm

c1938 Male bust pencil on paper 37.1 x 25.3 cm

c1938 Seated man pencil on paper 37 x 25.6 cm

c1938 Woman Sewing pencil on paper 37.7 x 25.7 cm

1939 Alpino and boat oil on paper 32 x 25 cm Museo Maga, Gallarate, Italy

c1939 Composition with figure tempera and mixed media on paper laid down on canvas 56.3 x 28.3 cm

c1939 Sketch for a project  tempera on paper 14.8 x 17.4 cm

before 1940 Two figures pencil on paper laid on canvas 28.5 x 41 cm

1940 Figure tempera on paper laid on canvas 30 x 40 cm

1940 Landscape with church pencil, black ink and black bold on paper 28 x 40 cm

1940 Monk's head oil on canvas 31.1 x 22.9 cm Los Angeles County Museum of Art, CA

1940 Mountains oil on cardboard 27 x 34 cm

1940 Two soldiers and a female figure tempera and pencil on paper 21 x 30.8 cm

1940-45 Two figures pencil and crayon on wove paper laid on canvas 29 x 41 cm

1940-50 Figures tempera on paper 32 x 23 cm

c1940 Composition with horse tempera on cardboard 25 x 24.4 cm

1940c Landscape oil on board 23 x 37.9 cm

c1940 Two studies for a figure from the relief "Il Popolo Italiano" from the Palazzo del Popolo d'Italia  pencil on card 20.6 x 21 cm

early 1940s Landscape with trees and mountains oil and tempera on paper laid on masonite 43.3 x 64.5 cm

late 1940s Mountain oil on canvas 17.4 x 27.8 cm

1941 Composition with architectural friezes mixed media on paper laid on canvas 46.7 x 54.2 cm

c1941 Multiplication oil on canvas 56.2 x 80 cm Moma, New York

1942 Figure with a corpse gouache on paper 26 x 41.4 cm

1942 The Dream magazine illustration mixed media on cardboard 23.3 x 28 cm

c1942 Composition with two figures tempera and mixed media on cardboard 11.7 x 10 cm

c1943 Composition pencil and cardboard on paper 34 x 48.5 cm

c1944 Reclining nude with tree oil and tempera on paper laid on canvas

c1945 Mountains tempera and mixed media on paper laid down on canvas 28.2 x 43.5 cm

1946-47 White Nude  tempera BiancoMuseo di Arte Moderna e Contemporanea Varese VA, Italy

For a more comprehensive biography, and for earlier works by Mario Sironi, see part 1 also.

This is part 2 of a 5-part series on the works of Mario Sironi: 

c1924 Urban Landscape oil on paper mounted on board  27.7 x 40 cm Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art, London

c1924 Urban Landscape with Railway Worker oil on paper laid on board 54.4 x 51.7 cm

1925 Figure in Interior pencil on paper 13.7 x 11 cm

1925 Study for an illustration of Massimo Bontempelli's short story "Oggi" pencil on paper 13.1 x 11.8 cm

1925-26 Solitudine oil on canvas 98 x 82 cm National Gallery of Modern Art in Rome

c1925-30 Bust of a young boy oil on canvas laid doen on cardboard 59 x 48 cm Boschi di Stefano Home-Museum, Milan

c1925 Female figure and building pencil and tempera on paper 25.1 x 22.4 cm

c1925 Figure tempera and mixed media on paper 31.3 x 22.4 cm

c1925 Fisherman  pencil on paper 30.5 x 24.5 cm

c1925 Sitting figure  ink and diluted ink on paper laid on canvas 23 x 15 cm

1926 Head of a man and architecture pencil and graphite on paper 16.3 x 12.6 cm

1926 Il Gigante dell' Aria (The Air Giant)

1926 Il Gigante dell' Aria (The Air Giant)

c1926-27 Houses and Bell Tower tempera and mixed media on paper 19.3 x 21.8 cm

c1926 Composition with female figure  pencil and tempera on paper laid down on canvas 24.5 x 18.6 cm

c1926 Figure tempera on paper laid on cardboard 17.3 x 12.6 cm

c1926 Study for an illustration tempera and mixed media on paper laid on canvas 50.4 x 35 cm

c1926 Study for an unfinished poster for the ‘Mostra del Novecento Italiano’ (Italian Twentieth Century Exhibition) ink and diluted ink on paper 31.6 x 26 cm

c1926 Trees, figure and house tempera on paper 18.8 x 21.6 cm

1927 Female Nude mixed media on paper 44 x 33 cm

1927 Illustration of the novella "The puppets and Marilù" by Rodolfo Cazzaniga tempera and mixed media on paper laid on canvas 24.6 x 34.7 cm

1927 The Family oil on canvas 97 x 73 cm Sovrintendenza Capitolina ai Beni Culturali (Capitoline Superintendence of Cultural Heritage)

c1927 Figure pencil on paper 27.7 x 20.6 cm

c1927 Head of a horse pencil and gouache on cardboard 19.3 x 19.2 cm

c1927 Landscape with figure, tree, rocks and air balloon pencil on paper 18.3 x 14.4 cm

c1927 Nude study  pencil on paper laid down on canvas 26 x 18 cm

c1927 Urban landscape oil on canvas 52 x 54.5 cm Private Collection

1928 Landscape with houses mixed media on paper laid on canvas 34.5 x 30.4 cm

1928 Study tempera on paper 12 x 13 cm

1928 Paesaggio urbano (Urban landscape) oil on masonite 40 x 58 cm Galleria Civica d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Turin

c1928-29 Study of a female nude pencil on paper 23.7 x 19 cm

c1928 Mountains oil on canvas 81.9 x 107.9 cm Tate Gallery, London

c1928 Nude woman seen from the back ink on paper 28.9 x 21 cm

1929 Sketch for the illustration 'Subscribe!' published in 'Il Popolo d'Italia' tempera and mixed media on paper laid on canvas 44.4 x 29.4 cm

1929-30 Composition tempera and mixed media on paper laid on canvas 24 x 22.5 cm

1930 Composition with landscape, tree and figures pencil on paper 16.7 x 24.5 cm

1930 Study for monumental composition pencil on paper 26.6 x 31.4 cm

c1930 Nude pencil on paper

c1930 Portrait oil on board 50 x 40 cm

late 1930s Mountain tempera and pencil on paper

1931 Untitled (Man opening a Door) Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art, London

c1931 Composition with figure tempera on paper on cardboard 55.2 x 54.9 cm

1932 Exposicion de la  Revolucion Fascista colour lithograph poster

1932 Original plate of the illustration of the novel "Sprechen sie deutsch" by Arrigo de Angelis mixed media on cardboard 23.5 x 27.3 cm

c1932 Knight India ink on paper 19 x 32.6 cm

1934 Edizione del Pomeriggio L'Ambrosiano colour lithograph poster

By 1915 Sironi had moved to Milan, where he took the place of Ardengo Soffici in the core Futurist group. That same year he signed the Futurist’ interventionist manifesto L’orgoglio italiano (Italian Pride). He served at the front with Marinetti, Boccioni, Russolo, and Antonio Sant’Elia. In 1919 Sironi participated in the “Grande Mostra Futurista” in Milan, organised by Marinetti as a show of the movement’s strength in the immediate post-war period. That same year he held his first one-man show at the Casa d’Arte Bragaglia in Rome. In 1920 he signed Contro tutti i ritorni in pittura (Against All Revivals in Painting) with Russolo and other former Futurists. From 1919-21 he painted his famous series of paesaggi urbani, urban landscapes, which transformed De Chirico’s haunting Italian piazze d’Italia, city-squares, into contemporary scenes of the Milanese industrial periphery.

In 1922 he was one of the founding members of the Sette di Novecento in Milan and became the leading exponent of the Novecento italiano. Sironi was the chief political caricaturist and illustrator for Mussolini’s official press, Il Popolo d’Italia (1927–33) and La Rivista Illustrata del Popolo d’Italia (1934–39). He was also the leading theorist and practitioner of mural painting and received prominent commissions from the regime. He authored the influential Manifesto of Mural Painting in 1933. After World War II he returned to easel painting in a style consistent with the abstract Informel movement. In 1956 he was elected member of the Accademia di San Luca. Sironi died in Milan on 13 August 1961.

This is part 1 of a 5-part series on the works of Mario Sironi:

c1906 Woman's Face pencil on paper (size not given)

c1913 Futurist Composition  ink on paper 22.4 x 14.7 cm

c1913 Futurist Figure pencil on paper 22 x 13.5 cm

1914 Futurist City Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art, London

1914 Nude (Standing Figure) Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art, London

c1914 Plasticity of a Head ink and tempera on paper 19 x 13.4 cm

1915 Composition mixed media on paper (size not given)

1915 Untitled (Woman, Horse and Cat) size not given Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art, London

1915 The Metaphysical Robot Arant (sie not given) Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art, London

1915-15 Soldier crayon on paper 26.9 x 18.5 cm MoMA, New York

c1915 Composition tempera and mixed media on paper laid on canvas 20.9 x 19.7 cm

c1915 Futurist Composition ink on paper 22.4 x 14.7 cm

1916 Figure of a man pencil and charcoal on paper laid down on canvas 32 x 22 cm

1916 The Cyclist oil on canvas (size not given) Gaetani collection, Rome

1916 The Cyclist oil on canvas 96 x 71 cm Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York

1916 Sketch for the cover of Gli Avvenimenti (The Events) magazine tempera and mixed media on paper laid on canvas 47.4 x 36 cm

1916 Townscape with Horse pencil on paper 31 x 21 cm

1916 Urban landscape, aeroplane and seated woman (size not given) Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art, London

c1916 Sketch for Illustration tempera and mixed media on paper on canvas (size not given)

1917 Horse and Carriage in a Street (size not given) Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art, London

1918 Figure on a balcony tempera on paper laid on canvas 26.8 x 19.8 cm

c1918-19 Composition pencil on paper 23.9 x 19.6 cm

c1918 Mannequin  ink on graph paper 21 x 15 cm MoMA, New York

1919 Venus of Harbours tempera on canvas 98 x 73.5 cm

c1919 Composition with Knight and mannequins mixed media on cardboard 53.8 x 36.8 cm

c1919 Female figure, houses and studies of heads pencil on paper 35.5 x 26.5 cm

c1919 Figure graphite on paper 34.4 x 22.8 cm

1920 Suburbs with Truck oil on canvas 67 x 55.5 cm Museo di arte moderna e contemporanea di Trento e Rovereto

1920 The Tramway oil on cardboard 72 x 99 cm

1920 Towards the goal (illustration published in 'Le industrie italiane illustrate' July edition

c1920 Boat and Fisherman ink on paper 13 x 21.5 cm

c1920 Bridge pencil on paper 14 x 19 cm

c1920 Composition with bottle and inkwell tempera and pencil on cardboard laid on canvas

c1920 Harbour, urban landscape and figure tempera and collage on paper laid down on canvas 33 x 28 cm

c1920 Urban landscape with tram ink on paper 21.7 x 27.8 cm

1920s Composition pencil and tempera on paper laid on canvas 14 x 18 cm

1921-22 Periphery oil on paper 54 x 54 cm Museo Nacionale de Bellas Arts, Buenos Aires, Argentina

c1921 Urban landscape ink on paper 13.6 x 10.4 cm

1922-23 Portrait (illustration for publication) pencil and China ink on paper 29 x 22.5 cm

1922-26 Athlete tempera and collage on canvassed paper 68 x 60 cm

1923 Semi-nude with fruit bowl oil on canvas 100 x 75.5 cm Galleria Civica d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Turin

1924 Maximum Patriots ink, tempera, tempera, charcoal, pencil and collage on cardboard 20.1 x 23.8 cm

1924 probably a design for a stage set tempera and mixed media on paper 32.8 x 29.5 cm

1924 Sketch for the cover of the Encyclopedic Almanac of the People of Italy pencil on card

1924 Urban Landscape oil on canvas (size not given) Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia

c1924 Horse with geometric rider (size not given) Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art, London

c1924 Ice Hockey tempera and pencil on paper 25.5 x 22.4 cm

c1924 Landscape with mountains, houses, tower and dome tempera and mixed media on paper 24.2 x 32.7 cm

Poet and art critic Charles Baudelaire described his hero Eugène Delacroix as "a volcanic crater artistically concealed beneath bouquets of flowers." Beneath the surface of Delacroix's polished elegance and charm roiled turbulent interior emotions. In 1822 Delacroix took the Salon by storm. Although the French artistic establishment considered him a wild man and a rebel, the French government, bought his paintings and commissioned murals throughout Paris. Though Delacroix aimed to balance classicism and Romanticism, his art cenreed on a revolutionary idea born with the Romantics: that art should be created out of sincerity, that it should express the artist's true feelings and convictions. Educated firmly in the classics, Delacroix often depicted mythological subjects, themes encouraged by the reigning Neoclassical artists at the Académie des Beaux-Arts. But Delacroix's brilliant colors and passionate brushwork frightened them; their watchwords were "noble simplicity and calm grandeur." They barred him from academy membership until 1857, and even then he was prohibited from teaching in the École des Beaux-Arts. For those very reasons, he was an inspiration to the Impressionists and other young artists. Paul Cézanne once said, "We are all in Delacroix." Intensely private, Delacroix kept a journal that is renowned as a profoundly moving record of the artistic experience.

This is part 6 of of a 6-part series on the works of Eugène Delacroix:

1851 The Agony in the Garden oil on canvas 34 x 42 cm Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

1852 Hercules and Antaeus lithograph on wove paper 44.2 x 29.2 cm The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

1852 Study for Marphise and the Mistress of Pinabel graphite on tan wove paper, tipped onto board 25 x 19.7 cm Art Institute of Chicago, IL

1852 Marphise and the Mistress of Pinabel oil on canvas 82 x 101 cm The Walters Museum, Baltimore, MD

1852 The Good Samaritan oil on canvas 34 x 42 cm Victoria & Albert Museun, London

c1852 Desdemona cursed by her Father  oil on cradled panel 40.6 x 32.1 cm  Brooklyn Museum, New York

1853 Christ on the Cross  oil on canvas 73.5 x 59.7 cm The National Gallery, London

1853 Christ on the Sea of Galilee

This scene is based on an incident recounted in three Gospels of the New Testament: a furious storm breaks out while Jesus and his disciples sail across the Sea of Galilee to spread Christ's message. To the disciples' amazement, Jesus calms the wind and the storm, dramatizing the power of Christian belief.

Delacroix produced multiple variations on this theme in 1853 and 1854, when this particular biblical subject became popular with French Catholics during the reign of Louis-Napoléon (r. 1852-70).

1853 Christ on the Sea of Galilee oil on composition board 47.6 x 58.1 cm Philadelphia Museum of Art, PA

1854 Christ on the Sea of Galilee oil on canvas  59.8 x 73.3 cm The Walters Museum, Baltimore, MD

1853 The Disciples at Emmaus oil on canvas 55.2 x 47 cm Brooklyn Museum, New York

c1853 Christ Asleep during the Tempest 

The Met note: Delacroix painted at least six versions of this New Testament lesson in faith: when awakened by his terrified disciples, Christ scolded them for their lack of trust in Providence. In the earlier works, the seascape is more prominent; in the later ones, as here, Christ’s bark occupies a more significant place. After Vincent van Gogh saw this version in Paris in 1886, he wrote, "Christ’s boat—I’m talking about the blue and green sketch with touches of purple and red and a little lemon yellow for the halo, the aureole—speaks a symbolic language through colour itself.”

c1853 Christ asleep during the Tempest oil on canvas 50.8 x 61 cm The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

1854 Lion hunting oil on canvas 90 x 116.7 cm © RMN-Grand Palais (Musée d’Orsay) / Franck Raux

1854 Tiger hunting oil on canvas 73 x 92.5 cm © Musée d’Orsay, Dist. RMN-Grand Palais / Patrice Schmidt

1854 Tiger stopped cliché-verre on wove paper 16.7 x 19.9 cm (plate)

c1854 Arab Rider oil on panel 35 x 26.5 cm Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

1855 Arab saddling his horse oil on canvas 56 x 47 cm The Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg, Russia

1855 Lion hunt in Morocco oil on canvas 74 x 92 cm The Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg, Russia

1858 Crossing a ford in Morocco oil on canvas 60.5 x 74 cm © RMN-Grand Palais (Musée d’Orsay) / Stéphane Maréchalle

1858 Forest pencil on paper 26 x 40.4 cm Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

1858 Lion Hunt oil on canvas 91.7 x 117.5 cm Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA

1858 Lion Hunt detail

1858 Lion Hunt detail

1858 St. Sebastian with St. Irene and attendant oil on panel 38.1 x 50.8 cm Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA)

1859 The Puma  oil on wood panel 41.2 x 30.7 cm © RMN-Grand Palais (Orsay Museum) / Sylvie Chan-Liat

1859 Ovid among the Scythians oil on canvas 87.6 x 130.2 cm The National Gallery, London

1862 Ovid among the Scythians

The Met note: This is the final work Delacroix devoted to a theme that had first attracted him in 1835. It depicts the exiled poet Ovid, who in A.D. 8 was banished from Rome to the coast of the Black Sea, at present-day Constantsa, Romania. He was treated with kindness by the Scythians, who are shown feeding him and expressing mare’s milk for him to drink. This painting reprises a larger composition that Delacroix exhibited at the Salon of 1859 (now National Gallery, London). Reviews were mixed, but its admirers included Edgar Degas and the critic Charles Baudelaire, who wrote "The mind sinks into it with a slow and appreciative rapture…”

1862 Ovid among the Scythians oil on paper, laid down on wood 32.1 x 50.2 cm The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

1862 Ovid among the Scythians detail

1862 Ovid among the Scythians detail

1860 Arabian horses fighting in a stable oil on canvas 65.5 x 81 cm © RMN-Grand Palais (Musée d’Orsay) / Franck Raux

1860-61 Lion Hunt oil on canvas  76.5 x 98.5 cm Potter Palmer Collection, Art Institute of Chicago, IL

1860-61 Lion Hunt detail

1860-61 Lion Hunt detail

1862 The Miraculous Draught of Fishes brown ink on paper 12.8 x 20.6 cm Kunsthalle, Bremen

n.d. The Miraculous Draught of Fishes pen, brown ink, and washes on paper 20.6 x 26.7 cm (sheet) Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA

1862 Tiger and Snake oil on canvas 33 x 41.2 cm National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC

1863 (August 29) La Pietà, from “L'Illustration"

Published just two weeks after the death of Delacroix, this print is described as the artist's "last drawing on wood." Customarily, to make a wood engraving, an artist would supply a drawing on paper to be translated by another hand onto the wood block, before being engraved by yet another practitioner. By drawing directly onto the wood himself, Delacroix believed the medium could serve as an outlet for the direct expression of his thought. This composition corresponds more closely with Delacroix's first oil sketch (private collection) for his Pietà than the final mural executed in Saint-Denys-du-Saint-Sacrement, which does not include the angels and reverses the figural group.

1863 (August 29) La Pietà, from "L'Illustration" wood engraving 36.1 x 51.9 cm The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

n.d. Armed riders and figure on the ground pen and brown ink, black and red chalk with graphite, on ivory wove paper 34.2 x 21.7 cm Art Institute of Chicago, IL

n.d. Charioteers (recto) pen and purple-black ink on wove paper 17.3 x 37 cm National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC

n.d. Charioteers (verso) pen and purple-black ink on wove paper 17.3 x 37 cm National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC

n.d. Man at Arms etching and drypoint 23.4 x 20.5 cm The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

n.d. Portrait of a Child graphite on paper 13.3 x 14.1 cm National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC

n.d. Studies of a sleeping lioness black crayon on oatmeal paper 13.2 x 20 cm Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA

n.d. Study of Arabs watercolour and graphite on laid paper 21.1 x 28.9 cm National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC

n.d. The assassinated man lithograph on paper National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia

n.d. Tiger Ready to Spring cliché verre on cream wove paper 15.8 x 19.1 cm (image) Art Institute of Chicago, IL

n.d. Two sketches of a sitting cleric pen and ink on paper 20.6 x 25.7 cm Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Poet and art critic Charles Baudelaire described his hero Eugène Delacroix as "a volcanic crater artistically concealed beneath bouquets of flowers." Beneath the surface of Delacroix's polished elegance and charm roiled turbulent interior emotions. In 1822 Delacroix took the Salon by storm. Although the French artistic establishment considered him a wild man and a rebel, the French government, bought his paintings and commissioned murals throughout Paris. Though Delacroix aimed to balance classicism and Romanticism, his art cenreed on a revolutionary idea born with the Romantics: that art should be created out of sincerity, that it should express the artist's true feelings and convictions. Educated firmly in the classics, Delacroix often depicted mythological subjects, themes encouraged by the reigning Neoclassical artists at the Académie des Beaux-Arts. But Delacroix's brilliant colors and passionate brushwork frightened them; their watchwords were "noble simplicity and calm grandeur." They barred him from academy membership until 1857, and even then he was prohibited from teaching in the École des Beaux-Arts. For those very reasons, he was an inspiration to the Impressionists and other young artists. Paul Cézanne once said, "We are all in Delacroix." Intensely private, Delacroix kept a journal that is renowned as a profoundly moving record of the artistic experience.

This is part 5 of of a 6-part series on the works of Eugène Delacroix:

1838 Frédérik Chopin oil on canvas 45.5 x 38 cm © RMN - Grand Palais (Louvre museum), Paris

1838-40 Study of a male nude: Study for "The Death of Seneca" graphite on buff Bristol board 31 x 23.4 cm The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

1839 Arab Encampment oil on fabric 38.1 x 46.3 cm Milwaukee Art Museum, WI

1839 Crouching tiger pen and brush and iron gall ink 13.1 x 18.7 cm The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

1840-50 Mountain landscape watercolour on paper 15.4 x 24.8 cm Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

1840-60 Dante’s Bark oil on canvas 34 x 40.2 cm Art Institute of Chicago, IL

1840-60 Dante’s Bark detail

1840-60 Dante’s Bark detail

c1840 The Shipwreck of Don Juan oil on canvas 81.3 x 99.7 cm Victoria & Albert Museum, London

1841 Jewish musician in Mogador costume, Morocco, from "Le Magasin Pittoresque" wood engraving on newsprint 17.4 x 12.8 cm The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

1842 The Education of the Virgin oil on canvas 95 x 125 cm Musée National Eugène Delacroix ©RMN-grand Palais, Louvre Museum, Paris

1842-43 George Sand's garden at Nohant oil on canvas 45.4 x 55.2 cm The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

1842-43 The edge of a wood at Nohant watercolour on paper 15.5 x 20.5 cm National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC

1843 Flowers watercolour, gouache, and black chalk, over charcoal on light brown wove paper 22.5 x 21.9 cm National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC

1843 Model for Orpheus

“ This painting takes on grandeur and simplicity. I believe it is what I have done best in the genre, ” noted Delacroix on March 4, 1848, when he completed the final work, on the ceiling of the library of the National Assembly. If this study is only a first thought for the final work, painted on a hemicycle 6.80m in diameter, it is nevertheless quite close to the final composition. This is one of the rare sketches that has preserved its original state, that is to say in a semi-hemispherical shape. It was Louis-Philippe, on the advice of his minister Adolphe Thiers, who commissioned Delacroix in 1833 to decorate the Palais Bourbon. After the paintings in the Assembly room, which excited the deputies, comes the ceiling of the library, to which the painter devoted ten years of his life.

1843 Model for Orpheus bringing the arts and peace to the still wild Greeks painting on canvas mounted on wood 40 x 70 cm Musée National Eugène Delacroix ©RMN-grand Palais, Louvre Museum, Paris

1843-44 Collision of the Moorish Horsemen oil on canvas  81.3 x 99.1 cm The Walters Museum, Baltimore, MD

1844 Lion devouring a horse lithograph in black on ivory China paper 17 x 23.5 cm

1844 The Death of Sardanapalus oil on canvas 73.7 x 92.6 cm Philadelphia Museum of Art, PA

1844 The Death of Sardanapalus detail

1844 The Death of Sardanapalus detail

c1844 The Education of Achilles graphite on paper 23.6 x 29.7 cm The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

c1844 The Education of Achilles pencil on paper 21.1 x 15 cm J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

1862 The Education of Achilles pastel 30.6 x 41.9 cm J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

1845 A false scalping performed by Iowa Tribe members in Paris pen and brown ink on laid paper 20.1 x 31.4 cm National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC

1845 Peasant women from the region of the Eaux-Bonnes watercolour, with touches of gouache, over traces of graphite, on cream wove paper 34 x 26.2 cm

1845 The Madeleine in the desert oil on canvas 55.5 x 45 cm Musée National Eugène Delacroix ©RMN-grand Palais, Louvre Museum, Paris

1832-33? Study for "The Sultan of Morocco and his Entourage" brush and brown ink 19.4 x 25.2 cm The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

1845 Study for "The Sultan of Morocco and his Entourage"  graphite on paper 59.7 x 49.7 cm The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

1845 The Sultan of Morocco and his Entourage oil on canvas 377 x 340 cm Musée des Augustins, Toulouse, France

1846 Lion and Snake watercolour heightened with gum on slightly textured, moderately thick, cream wove paper 38.7 x 59 cm  The Walters Museum, Baltimore, MD

1846 The Abduction of Rebecca oil on canvas 100.3 x 81.9 cm The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

c1846 Mathurin Régnier watercolour and gouache over traces of graphite on wove paper 30.8 x 22.4 cm The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

c1846 Tiger lying in the desert etching, roulette, bitten tone, and drypoint on thin laid beige tracing paper; third state of six 9 x 13.3 cm  The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

1848-49 Arch of Morning Glories, study for "A Basket of Flowers"  pastel on blue paper 30.6 x 45.7 cm

1848-49 Basket of Flowers oil on canvas 107.3 x 142.2 cm The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

1849 A Hunter stalking a lion in the mountains of North Africa pastel and charcoal 24 x 31.1 cm The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

1849-52Hercules Binds Nereus

Eugène Delacroix (1798–1863) was commissioned in early 1852 to create a set of designs to decorate the Salon de la Paix of the Hôtel de Ville in Paris. He painted a scene based on the theme of Peace Descending to Earth for the ceiling, classical gods and goddesses for eight chambers, and episodes from the life of Hercules for eleven tympanums around the doors and windows. The finished look—the last project undertaken by Delacroix for a public building—was inaugurated in 1854 but was unfortunately destroyed in a fire in 1871.

Delacroix made the unusual decision to represent episodes of the life of Hercules rather than his twelve labours. This scene occurs just before the eleventh labour. Hercules binds or chains down Nereus—the “old man of the sea” who can change shape to a lion, snake and so on—to get him to reveal the location of the garden of Hesperides, from which he wants to steal some golden apples. The characters wrestle in front of a large vault-shaped rock, which frames their bodies.

1849 Hercules binds Nereus pencil on tracing paper 2.4 x 33.8 cm Musée National Eugène Delacroix, Louvre, Paris

1852 Hercules binds Nereus oil on canvas 24 x 47 cm Musée National Eugène Delacroix, Louvre, Paris

1849 Lioness tearing at the chest of an Arab soft ground etching and roulette on cream chine 21.2 x 28.1 cm (plate)

1849 The Lamentation (Christ at the Tomb) oil on canvas 162.6 x 132.1 cm Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA

1849-50 Arab Horseman attacked by a Lion oil on panel 43.9 x 38.1 cm Art Institute of Chicago, IL

1850 Jacob wrestling with the Angel oil over pen and ink on tracing paper; mounted on canvas 56.8 x 40.6 cm The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

c1850 Moroccan Horseman crossing a Ford oil on canvas 46 x 38.1 cm J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

c1850 Sunset pastel on blue laid paper 20.4 x 25.9 cm The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

1850s A Lioness and a Caricature of Ingres

This drawing likely dates from a period in which tensions between Delacroix and his rival Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres were particularly high. In the 1840s, critics increasingly cast the two artists as adversaries with opposing styles, and their respective solo exhibitions at the 1855 Exposition Universelle in Paris amplified the sense of competition. Delacroix also blamed Ingres for blocking his election to the Institut de France, the nation’s premier learned society—a post he eventually achieved in 1857. Here, he inserts at left an acerbic caricature of Ingres in profile, demonstrating the incisiveness he could achieve in pen and ink.

1850s A Lioness and a caricature of Ingres pen and brown ink on laid paper 18.6 x 24.9 cm The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

1851 Romeo and Juliet (scene from the Capulet tombs) oil on paper mounted on canvas 35.2 x 26.5 cm Musée National Eugène Delacroix ©RMN-grand Palais, Louvre Museum, Paris

Eugène Delacroix © Musée d’Orsay, Dist. RMN-Grand Palais / Alexis Brandt

Poet and art critic Charles Baudelaire described his hero Eugène Delacroix as "a volcanic crater artistically concealed beneath bouquets of flowers." Beneath the surface of Delacroix's polished elegance and charm roiled turbulent interior emotions. In 1822 Delacroix took the Salon by storm. Although the French artistic establishment considered him a wild man and a rebel, the French government, bought his paintings and commissioned murals throughout Paris. Though Delacroix aimed to balance classicism and Romanticism, his art cenreed on a revolutionary idea born with the Romantics: that art should be created out of sincerity, that it should express the artist's true feelings and convictions. Educated firmly in the classics, Delacroix often depicted mythological subjects, themes encouraged by the reigning Neoclassical artists at the Académie des Beaux-Arts. But Delacroix's brilliant colors and passionate brushwork frightened them; their watchwords were "noble simplicity and calm grandeur." They barred him from academy membership until 1857, and even then he was prohibited from teaching in the École des Beaux-Arts. For those very reasons, he was an inspiration to the Impressionists and other young artists. Paul Cézanne once said, "We are all in Delacroix." Intensely private, Delacroix kept a journal that is renowned as a profoundly moving record of the artistic experience.

This is part 4 of of a 6-part series on the works of Eugène Delacroix:

1833 Ecce Homo (Christ with the Reed) etching: first state of four 15.8 x 12 cm The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

1833 Muletiers de Tétuan lithograph on paper 19.4 x 26.7 cm (image) Philadelphia Museunm of Art, PA

1833 Portrait of Madame Frédéric Villot etching, second state 8.6 x 8.3 cm The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

1833 Strolling Players watercolour on paper 24.8 x 18.4 cm Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA)

1833 Study of a woman seen from the back etching in black on off-white wove paper 10.5 x 15.5 cm (image) Art Institute of Chicago, IL

1833 Women of Algiers graphite on paper 20.7 x 33.5 cm National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC

1833 Women of Algiers lithograph: second state of two 16 x 22 cm (image) The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

c1833 Arabes D'Oran etching on paper 14.5 x 19 cm (image) Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA

c1833 Still Life with Dahlias  oil on canvas 50 x 33 cm Philadelphia Museum of Art, PA

1834 Bacchus and a Tiger fresco 57 x 89 cm Musée National Eugène Delacroix ©RMN-grand Palais, Louvre Museum, Paris

before 1834 Henri IV Conferring the Regency upon Marie de' Medici (after Rubens) oil on canvas 88.2 x 115.8 Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA)

Henri IV Conferring the Regency upon Marie de' Medici detail

Henri IV Conferring the Regency upon Marie de' Medici detail

1834 Collision of Moorish Horsemen etching on paper 26.2 x 18.4 cm (plate) The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

1834 Portrait of George Sand oil on canvas 26 x x 21.3 cm Musée National Eugène Delacroix ©RMN-grand Palais, Louvre Museum, Paris

1834 The Turkish Rider gouache and watercolour, with scraping, selectively gum-varnished, on cream wove paper 25.2 x 18.7 cm  Art Institute of Chicago, IL

1834 Women of Algiers in their Apartment oil on canvas 180 x 229 cm © RMN - Grand Palais (Louvre museum), Paris

1834 Young Clifford finding the body of his father, from "L'Artiste" lithograph on paper 22.3 x 15.7 cm (image) The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

1835-43 Hamlet

In 1834 Delacroix began a series of lithographs devoted to Hamlet, creating moody images that mirror the troubled psyche of the prince. Choosing key scenes and poetic passages, the artist's highly personal and dramatic images were unusual in France, where interest in Shakespeare developed only in the nineteenth century. Gihaut frères published the artist's thirteen-print set in 1843, with a second expanded edition of sixteen issued by Bertauts in 1864. Cooly received at first, the prints eventually were recognised as one of the artist's most significant achievements.

1834 Hamlet and the Queen lithograph in black on off-white China paper 25.4 x 19.8 cm (image)

1834 Hamlet and the Queen lithograph in black on off-white China paper 26 x 17.9 cm (image)

1834 Ophelia's Song lithograph in black on off-white China paper 25.8 x 20.7 cm (image)

What ist ? A rat? lithograph in black on off-white China paper

1834-43 Hamlet and Ophelia lithograph in black on off-white China paper 24.2 x 19.8 cm (image)

1834-43 Polonius and Hamlet lithograph in black on off-white China paper 24.9 x 18.4 cm (image)

1835 Hamlet and the Body of Polonius lithograph in black on off-white China paper 25.6 x 17.8 cm (image)

1835 Hamlet Makes the Players Enact the Poisoning of His Father lithograph in black on off-white China paper 24.9 x 32.3 cm (image)

1835 Hamlet Pursuing His Father's Ghost lithograph in black on off-white China paper 25.9 x 20.3 cm (image)

1843 Hamlet and Guildenstern lithograph in black on off-white China paper 25.1 x 20.2 cm (image)

1843 Hamlet and Horatio with the Gravediggers  lithograph in black on ivory China 28.4 x 21.2 cm (image)

1843 Hamlet and Laertes at the Tomb of Ophelia graphite on tracing paper, laid down 23.3 x 30.6 cm

1843 Hamlet and Laertes in Ophelia's Grave lithograph 28.5 x 19.4 cm (image)

1843 Hamlet and the Gravediggers black chalk, with touches of graphite, on cream laid paper 28.4 x 20.1 cm

1843 Hamlet attempts to slay the King lithograph in black on off-white China paper 25.4 x 18.1 cm (image)

1843 Ophelia's Death lithograph in black on white wove paper 15.8 x 25.7 cm (image)

1843 The Ghost on the Platform lithograph in black on off-white China paper 25.9 x 19.2 cm (image)

1846 Hamlet's Death lithograph in black on white China paper 29 x 20.2 cm (image)

1849 Hamlet and His Mother 

This painting depicts the moment in Shakespeare’s epic tragedy Hamlet in which the protagonist, who has been speaking privately with his mother, Queen Gertrude of Denmark, notices a figure behind the curtains of her closet. Immediately afterward, Hamlet will impale the hidden Polonius with his sword, and utter the memorable phrase "How now! A rat? Dead for a ducat, dead!" The composition is identical to a black and white lithograph Delacroix made for a portfolio devoted to the play, which was first published in 1843.

1849 Hamlet and his Mother oil on canvas 27.3 x 18.1 cm The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

c1834 Standing woman in Moroccan costume graphite and watercolour on wove paper 32.5 x 20.8 cm The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

1835 Lion and tortoise pen and iron gall ink with graphite on light blue moderately thick, smooth wove paper 19.8 x 26.1 cm The Walters Museum, Baltimore, MD

1835 Madame Henri François Riesener 

The Met note: Delacroix rarely portrayed anyone other than his closest family and friends. His affection for Madame Riesener, an aunt by marriage, is expressed through the frank tenderness of this portrait. She was once known for her beauty: some thirty years before the date of this portrait she served as a lady-in-waiting to empress Josephine, and having caught Napoleon’s eye, engaged in a brief liaison with him. After she died, Delacroix wrote to George Sand, "each of the beings necessary to our existence who disappears, takes away with him a whole world of feelings that no other relationship can revive."

1835 Madame Henri François Riesener (Félicité Longrois, 1786–1847)  oil on canvas 74.3 x 60.3 cm The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

c1835 Male Nude Posing for figures in the Frieze of War graphite on laid paper 19.6 x 29.1 cm National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC

1838 Christopher Columbus and his son at La Rábida oil on canvas 90.3 x 118 cm National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC

1849 Arab Horseman at the gallop graphite on tracing paper 32 x 25.7 cm National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC

1849 Basket of Flowers and Fruit oil on canvas 108.3 x 143.2 cm Philadelphia Museum of Art, PA

1849 Basket of Flowers and Fruit detail

1889 Portrait of Eugène Delacroix by Marcellin Desboutin heliogravure The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Poet and art critic Charles Baudelaire described his hero Eugène Delacroix as "a volcanic crater artistically concealed beneath bouquets of flowers." Beneath the surface of Delacroix's polished elegance and charm roiled turbulent interior emotions. In 1822 Delacroix took the Salon by storm. Although the French artistic establishment considered him a wild man and a rebel, the French government, bought his paintings and commissioned murals throughout Paris. Though Delacroix aimed to balance classicism and Romanticism, his art cenreed on a revolutionary idea born with the Romantics: that art should be created out of sincerity, that it should express the artist's true feelings and convictions. Educated firmly in the classics, Delacroix often depicted mythological subjects, themes encouraged by the reigning Neoclassical artists at the Académie des Beaux-Arts. But Delacroix's brilliant colors and passionate brushwork frightened them; their watchwords were "noble simplicity and calm grandeur." They barred him from academy membership until 1857, and even then he was prohibited from teaching in the École des Beaux-Arts. For those very reasons, he was an inspiration to the Impressionists and other young artists. Paul Cézanne once said, "We are all in Delacroix." Intensely private, Delacroix kept a journal that is renowned as a profoundly moving record of the artistic experience.

This is part 3 of of a 6-part series on the works of Eugène Delacroix:

1829-30 Lion of the Atlas Mountains lithograph: probably second state of four 33 x 46.7 cm The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

n.d. Lion Devouring a Rabbit pen and brown iron gall ink, over graphite, on ivory laid paper 26 x 32 cm Art Institute of Chicago, IL

c1829 Studies of Lions graphite on cream laid paper 22.7 x 34.2 cm Art Institute of Chicago, IL

1829-30 Royal Tiger lithograph in black on light grey China paper 32.5 x 46.4 cm (image)

1829-30 Royal Tiger watercolour and graphite on paper 17.8 x 26.8 cm The Morgan Library & Museum, New York City

c1830 Royal Tiger watercolour on paper 14.1 x 25.1 cm National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC

1829-30 Sketch for the Battle of Poitiers oil on canvas  52 x 64.8 cm The Walters Museum, Baltimore, MD

1829-30 Sketch for the Battle of Poitiers detail

1829-30 Sketch for the Battle of Poitiers detail

1829-31 Interior of the Church of Valmont Abbey brown and grey wash over graphite 18.3 x 21.7 cm The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

1830 Liberty leading the People oil on canvas 260 x 325 cm © RMN - Grand Palais (Louvre museum), Paris

1830 Liberty leading the People detail

1830 Liberty leading the People detail

1830 Liberty leading the People study

1830s The Runaway Carriage pen and black ink on heavy laid paper 29.1 x 50.2 cm National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC

1931 Interior of a Dominican Convent in Madrid

The subject of this painting is from a popular nineteenth-century English novel, Charles Maturin's Melmoth the Wanderer, translated into French in 1821. A young man forced into a convent as a child undergoes harrowing trials in order to escape his punitive and corrupt surroundings. Here he is shown being dragged before the bishop of Madrid. The artist depicts a cavernous, vaulted room that is actually based on the interior of the Palace of Justice in Rouen, France. Delacroix's use of this decidedly un-Spanish, secular setting may have been an intentional reference to the oppressive link between civic and religious power, a theme prominent in the novel.

1831 Interior of a Dominican Convent in Madrid oil on canvas 130.2 x 161.9 cm Philadelphia Museum of Art, PA

1831 Interior of a Dominican Convent in Madrid detail

1831 Interior of a Dominican Convent in Madrid detail

1831 Normandy lithograph in black on ivory China paper 17.4 x 22.3 cm (image)

1831 Willibald Gluck at the Clavecin composing the score of his "Armide" brush and brown washes, heightened with white 22.7 x 17.4 cm Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA

1831 Young Tiger Playing with its Mother lithograph in black on buff wove paper 11.2 x 18.7 cm (image)

c1831 Episode from "The Corsair" by Lord Byron watercolour, brown ink, touches of gouache, over graphite underdrawing 24.3 x 19.2 cm J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

1832 A Moroccan Couple on Their Terrace

This is one of eighteen watercolours Delacroix presented to his travel companion, the diplomat Charles de Mornay, following their return from North Africa. The artist executed a number of the works while the men were quarantined for two weeks in Toulon. Inspired by the quality of Mediterranean light observed during the journey, he adopted a brighter palette than he had used previously. His fascination with Moroccan costume is apparent here in the attention he lavished on the multilayered attire of the woman, especially compared to his more abstract approach to other decorative aspects of the scene.

1832 A Moroccan couple on their terrace watercolour over traces of graphite 13.7 x 18.9 cm The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

1832 Four sketches of Arab men watercolour and graphite, on tan wove paper 18.4 x 26.9 cm Art Institute of Chicago, IL

1832 Portrait of Amina Biasa, Minister of the Sultan of Morocco graphite and watercolour on paper Louvre Museum, Paris

1832 Saada, the Wife of Abraham Ben-Chimol

The Met note: Delacroix produced this sumptuous watercolor on a trip to North Africa in 1832. He accompanied his friend the Count de Mornay on his mission as good-will ambassador to the Sultan of Morocco, Abd-er-Rahman II. Assigned to the delegation as dragoman was the Jewish interpreter Abraham Ben-Chimol (Abraham Benchimol) of Tangiers, who introduced the Frenchmen to his wife and to his daughter, pictured here in her bridal attire. In his "Journal," Delacroix described in extensive detail a Jewish wedding he attended in Tangiers on February 21, 1832.

1832 Saada, the wife of Abraham Ben-Chimol, and Préciada, one of their daughters watercolour over graphite on wove paper 22.2 x 16.2 cm The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

1832 Young Moroccan, standing watercolour  over pen and brown ink 19.4 x 6.7 cm The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

1832 Young Spanish lady in costume of Manola gouache and watercolour, with traces of scraping, over graphite, on cream wove paper 30.5 x 24.1 cm Art Institute of Chicago, IL

1832-33 A Portrait of Dr. François-Marie Desmaisons oil on canvas 88.9 x 8.3 cm Detroit Institute of Arts. MI

1832-37 Three Arab Horsemen at an Encampment

Delacroix produced this watercolour based on his sketches, notes, and memories of a ten-day journey between Tangier and Meknès. The blue hills in the background evoke his description of the mountainous landscape as "violet in the morning and evening, blue during the day." He shows just three of the multitude of horsemen that accompanied the diplomatic envoy; two are seated at rest, while the central mounted figure adopts a posture reminiscent of Delacroix’s depictions of Sultan Abd er-Rahman.

1832-37 Three Arab horsemen at an encampment watercolour over graphite 21.7 x 29.6 cm The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

c1832 Arab horsemen black, white and red chalk on brown paper 22 x 28.7 cm National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia

c1832 Sketches of Algerian men pen and brown ink, with traces of graphite, on tan wove paper 20.5 x 30.2 cm Art Institute of Chicago, IL

1833 A Blacksmith aquatint, drypoint: between third and fourth state of six 16 x 9.8 cm (image) The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

1833 A Jewish Bride in Tangier etching: first state of four 21.3 x 17.3 cm

1833 A Lord from the time of Francis I etching and drypoint on white wove paper 17.3 x 12.7 cm (image)

1833 A Man with weapons etching on paper (size not given)

1833 A vase of flowers oil on canvas 57.7 x 48.8 cm © National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh

1833 Arabs of Oran etching, roulette and drypoint on ivory laid paper  14.4 x 19.3 cm (image)

1833 Chief Mohammed-Ben-Abou etching on off-white chine 14.2 x 21.3 cm (plate)

1836-45 Goetz of Berlichingen

1836 Brother Martin clasping the iron hand of Goetz lithograph in black on ivory China paper 24.7 x 18.9 cm

1836 The wounded Goetz cared for by the Bohemians lithograph in black with scrapping on stone, on thin off-white paper 30.4 x 23 cm (image) Art Institute of Chicago, IL

1836 Weislingen attacked by Goetz's men lithograph in black on white China paper 31.1 x 27.2 cm (image) The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

1836-43 Goetz von Berlichingen writing his memoirs graphite on beige wove paper 24.5 x 19.2 cm The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

1836-43 Goetz von Berlichingen writing his memoirs lithograph on paper 26.5 x 19.2 cm The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

1836-43 The Wounded Goetz taken in by the Gypsies lithograph on paper 30.4 x 23 cm The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

c1836-43 The Death of Weislingen lithograph on paper 27.8 x 21.7 cm (image)

1842 Goetz van Berlichingen's horse pen and iron gall ink 13 x 19.2 cm The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

1843 Death of Goetz von Berlichingen wood engraving 21.8 x 14.6 cm (block) The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

1845 Goetz and Friar Martin wood engraving on paper 21.8 x 14.5 cm (block)