id: 144964 accession number: 1970.159 share license status: CC0 url: https://clevelandart.org/art/1970.159 updated: 2024-03-26 01:59:25.629000 Figure in Turkish Costume, c. 1856–1863. Attributed to Eugène Delacroix (French, 1798–1863). Oil on paper, glued to canvas; unframed: 43.2 x 32.4 cm (17 x 12 3/4 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of Paul and Odette Wurzburger 1970.159 title: Figure in Turkish Costume title in original language: series: series in original language: creation date: c. 1856–1863 creation date earliest: 1856 creation date latest: 1863 current location: creditline: Gift of Paul and Odette Wurzburger copyright: --- culture: France, 19th century technique: oil on paper, glued to canvas department: Modern European Painting and Sculpture collection: Mod Euro - Painting 1800-1960 type: Painting find spot: catalogue raisonne: --- CREATORS * Eugène Delacroix (French, 1798–1863) - artist Eugène Delacroix studied under history painter Pierre-Narcisse Guérin (1774-1833) and at the École des Beaux-Arts, though he did not succeed in competitions there. He soon befriended romantic painter Théodore Géricault (1791-1824) and exhibited at his first Salon in 1822 his powerful, moody The Barque of Dante (Musée du Louvre, Paris). In the next Salon, inspired by the recent events in the Greeks' struggle for independence against the Turks, Delacroix showed Scenes from the Massacres at Chios (Musée du Louvre, Paris), a painting whose anti-academic composition, free brushwork, and brilliant color caused hostile critics to accuse the artist of the "massacre of painting." Nevertheless, he was awarded a Salon medal and the state purchased the picture. After the early death of Géricault, the young artist became the titular head of the French romantic artistic movement, as much for his innovative technique as his new themes. Widely read and an Anglophile, Delacroix drew frequently from British literature, especially Shakespeare, Byron, and Sir Walter Scott. He also developed a strong interest in orientalist subjects, spurred by the five-month trip to Morocco and southern Spain he took in 1832. He stressed the creative and imaginative elements of painting and opposed the academy for its rote learning and the bourgeoisie for its overly materialistic interests. Delacroix discussed his aesthetic ideas with an ever-expanding circle of writers, musicians, and artists that he frequented, including pianist-composer Frédéric Chopin and writer George Sand. But ultimately he developed a personal conception of beauty that could only be expressed in an individualized manner. Recent studies have revised the long-standing interpretation of Delacroix as a radical, anticlassical, misunderstood, and unsupported genius. He greatly admired antiquity and the classical authors but insisted on avoiding the narrow or didactic view of them offered by the academies. He may not have emulated classical statuary as sources for his figures, but he did often represent heroic nude figures. For all his insistence on invention, Delacroix retained some sense of documentary reconstruction, for he made numerous studies of costumes and weapons and did other kinds of research before tackling certain subjects. From the beginning and throughout his career, Delacroix received many religious and historical painting commissions, from provincial churches to government buildings, under different rulers and even political systems. His allegorical work Liberty Leading the Barricades (1830-31, Musée du Louvre, Paris) represents the only painting in which the artist referred to a contemporary political event in France, the revolution that overthrew Louis XVIII and the Bourbon monarchy. This, too, was purchased by the state. In 1833 he was asked to decorate with allegories the Salon du Roi of the Palais Bourbon, the seat of the deputies. Their success brought him additional commissions in the same building, such as the library (1838), and then the library in the senate (1841-46), housed in the Palais du Luxembourg. His historical, religious, and allegorical paintings were often criticized by more conservative critics for a lack of decorum, anatomical distortions, too-bright or unnaturalistic color, and free brushwork, but he continued to find work because he was one of the few artists who continued to explore these "elevated" genres and had a sure sense of the decorative. Extremely prolific, Delacroix accomplished a major mural commission for the church of Saint-Sulpice in Paris (1850-63) the year before his death. He was even elected in 1857 to the Académie des Beaux-Arts, but younger artists consistently regarded him as antiestablishment and a paragon of artistic experimentation. He wrote extensively on art and aesthetic issues, both in his private diaries and for published journals.1 1. Recently, scholars such as Michele Hannoosh, Painting and the Journal of Eugene Delacroix (Princeton, 1995), have examined the content and style of Delacroix's texts for what they might tell about Delacroix the writer as well as the work and creative process of Delacroix the artist. Delacroix was one of the most innovative and successful painters of the first half of the 19th century. He is known as the last great history painter and his art is the ideal of Romanticism in the visual arts. Delacroix's career is marked by the paradox between the revolutionary and the conventional. He was in conflict with the artist Ingres and was seen as the leading figure of the French Romantic movement; he was famed for undermining the tradition of painting established by David, yet he benefited from official patronage from the beginning of the Restoration (1814-1830) until the Second Empire (1852-1870). --- measurements: Unframed: 43.2 x 32.4 cm (17 x 12 3/4 in.) state of the work: edition of the work: support materials: inscriptions: --- CURRENT EXHIBITIONS title: Year in Review: 1970 opening date: 1971-02-10T05:00:00 Year in Review: 1970. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 10-March 7, 1971). --- LEGACY EXHIBITIONS --- PROVENANCE (Possibly artist's estate sale, Feb. 17-29, 1864, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, no. 188) date: 1864 footnotes: *
In Delacroix’s posthumous sale of 1864, lot 188 consisted of three studies for which no further details are given beyond the vague title, “Trois études de costumes d’hommes de l’Orient.”  Lee Johnson, author of the Delacroix catalogue raisonné, however, questions whether the Cleveland sketch is indeed among the three studies in lot 188, and even if it can be proven with certainty that it was one of the three studies, Johnson is doubtful that the Cleveland sketch is an autograph work.  He maintains that in spite of the wax monogram “ED” on the stretcher and, on the front, a printed label that reads “188” – he notes could both be fake – the sketch’s attribution must be called into question unless scientific tests establish the authenticity of its materials and/or its early provenance can be securely documented.  It should be noted, however, that the “ED” monogram on the Cleveland sketch does much more strongly resemble the example of an authentic seal Johnson presents in his catalogue than the forged examples he illustrates.  Because there is no provenance for the sketch prior to its supposed appearance in the 1864 sale, it is possible that it may have been painted by one of Delacroix’s students or another artist and was then erroneously attributed to Delacroix after his death.  The “ED” seal and sale label may have been added at some point to increase the work’s value and saleability.  The only hint of its pre-1864 provenance is a label on the back of the frame that appears to read “Acheté 1862 165 + Delacroix,” indicating that a transaction, possibly involving Delacroix himself, took place in 1862.  The study’s provenance following the 1864 sale, if it indeed appeared in that auction, is also unclear.  Different copies of the auction catalogue reveal varying handwritten notations accompanying lot 188.  Several copies of the catalogue have an annotation that indicates the prices paid for the three studies: 215, 255, and 155 francs.  One annotation indicates that the studies were purchased by “Pérot, Pérot [and] Busquet” (or possibly Ringuet, as the handwriting is difficult to discern), respectively, while another lists only Prévost.  In his 1885 catalogue of Delacroix’s oeuvre, Alfred Robaut notes that one of the three works was purchased by Muret, but he may have inadvertently confused one of the buyers with that of lot 187, where “Muret” is indeed indicated as one of the buyers, written in directly above Busquet/Ringuet.  Johnson has identified two studies (L45 and L46 in his catalogue raisonné) as two of the three works comprising lot 188, in part because they both later appeared in the collection of “M. Mercier,” and so likely were purchased by the same buyer at the 1864 sale.  Johnson gives Prévost as that buyer, but it is just as likely that the buyer in question was in fact Pérot.  While Robaut reproduces L45 and L46 in his catalogue, the third study, that purchased by Busquet/Ringuet and possibly now at CMA, is not reproduced, making it that more difficult to secure its early provenance.  Another clue to the study’s early provenance may be a stencil on the back of the canvas that refers to Étienne-François Haro’s shop, Au Génie des Arts (spelled out in the stencil).  Haro studied painting under Delacroix before taking over the shop in the early 1850s, where he worked as a dealer, restorer, and collector.  Haro held auctions at the shop, but also acquired works directly from artists and at public auctions.  Because Haro not only bought/sold works by contemporary artists, both as a dealer and for himself, but also supplied materials, it is difficult to determine for which type of transaction the Haro stencil was applied to the canvas of the Delacroix, and whether or not Haro figures in the provenance.




citations: Marie-Louise Guinot, to her husband, Georges Aubry date: Probably until 1926 footnotes: *
Johnson wrote in a letter of July 12, 1969 to CMA curator Ann Tzeutschler Lurie that he had “been able to turn up in conversation in Paris [the] hearsay evidence that [the] picture was part of a provincial collection that had remained intact since the 19th century” until it came up for auction in 1967.  It is possible that Guinot was the owner of this “provincial” collection, and that the painting had been in her family since the nineteenth century. 
citations: Georges Aubry, Paris date: By 1926 - c. 1930 footnotes: *
According to documents found in Aubry’s country house, he owned the painting by 1926, but by around 1930, it was no longer in his possession.
citations: (Sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, March 6-7, 1967, no. 7, sold to Claude Aubry) date: 1967 footnotes: *
Dealer Claude Aubry, son of Georges Aubry, purchased the Delacroix sketch at this auction at the request of his father, who noticed that it was on the market.  
citations: (Claude Aubry, Paris, sold to Paul and Odette Wurzburger) date: 1967- footnotes: citations: Paul [1904-1976] and Odette [1909-2006] Wurzburger, Cleveland, OH, given to the Cleveland Museum of Art date: Until 1970 footnotes: citations: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH date: 1970- footnotes: citations: --- fun fact: digital description: wall description: --- RELATED WORKS --- CITATIONS Bortolatto, Luigina Rossi. Tout l'œuvre peint de Delacroix. Paris: Flammarion, 1975. page number: url: Johnson, Lee. The Paintings of Eugene Delacroix A Critical Catalogue. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981. page number: url: d'Argencourt, Louise, Roger Diederen, and Alisa Luxenberg. European Paintings of the 19th Century. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1999. page number: url: Johnson, Lee. The Paintings of Eugene Delacroix A Critical Catalogue. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981. page number: url: Claude Aubry, letter to Ann Tzeutschler Lurie, May 29, 1972, in CMA curatorial file. page number: url: Claude Aubry, letter to Ann Tzeutschler Lurie, May 29, 1972, in CMA curatorial file. page number: url: Hôtel Drouot. Tableaux modernes, tableaux anciens….March 6-7, 1967. page number: url: Claude Aubry, letter to Ann Tzeutschler Lurie, May 29, 1972, in CMA curatorial file. page number: url: Claude Aubry, letter to Ann Tzeutschler Lurie, Dec. 8, 1969, in CMA curatorial file. page number: url: Ann Tzeutschler Lurie, letter to Lee Johnson, April 13, 1970, in CMA curatorial file. page number: url: Claude Aubry, letter to Ann Tzeutschler Lurie, Dec. 8, 1969, in CMA curatorial file. page number: url: Hôtel Drouot. Catalogue de la vente qui aura lieu par suite du déces de Eugène Delacroix. Feb. 17-29, 1864 page number: url: Johnson, Lee. The Paintings of Eugene Delacroix A Critical Catalogue. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981. page number: url: d'Argencourt, Louise, Roger Diederen, and Alisa Luxenberg. European Paintings of the 19th Century. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1999. page number: url: Argencourt, Louise d', and Roger Diederen. Catalogue of Paintings. Pt. 4. European Paintings of the 19th Century. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1974. page number: Mentioned and reproduced: P. 231-233, Vol. I, no. 83 url: --- IMAGES web: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1970.159/1970.159_web.jpg print: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1970.159/1970.159_print.jpg full: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1970.159/1970.159_full.tif