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| EUGÈNE DELACROIX (Charenton-Saint-Maurice 1789 – 1863 Paris)
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| Margarete in the Church with Studies of the Head of Mephisto
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Brush and brown and grey ink, over pencil; inscribed upper right: voir les gravures de Jordaens.....à la bibliotheque
182 x 275 mm
Provenance:
Atelier Delacroix (Lugt 838a); Edgar Degas; His sale, Hotel Drouot, Paris, 6.-7.11.1918, lot 14 (as part of this lot); Bernheim-Jeune, Paris; Private collection, Paris
Literature:
John P. O’Neill (editor), The Private Collection of Edgar Degas, A Summary Catalogue.
Exh.cat. New York 1997, p.39, no.314
Exhibited:
Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, Paris. Gros, Géricault, Delacroix. January – March 1954, no.79
In 1825 Delacroix attended a performance of Goethe’s Faust Part I in a London theatre, where the imaginative stage design and the dramatic background music seem to have made a deep impression on the artist . During the following two years Delacroix produced a series of 17 lithographs illustrating the play. Goethe saw two of the artist’s proofs in 1826 and wrote to Eckermann expressing his delight. Goethe, then in his late seventies, was greatly impressed by the free and expressive interpretation of the young Delacroix, which differed dramatically from the more conventional illustrations by Cornelius and Retzsch in Germany.
Our drawing can be linked with the lithograph Marguérite à l’église . Whilst the print, depicts Margarete kneeling with her head resting on her right arm, the drawing shows her looking upward with her eyes closed. In the drawing Margarete is alone, whereas in the lithograph she is in a crowded church with Mephisto kneeling behind her, suggesting that our sheet was a prima idea for the illustration.
The inscription and the three heads, probably of Mephisto, on the right hand side of the drawing can be regarded as marginal drawings4. Similar little sketches of objects, figures or flowery remarks can be found on many of the artist‘s proofs5.
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