Eugène Delacroix
French, 1798-1863

Nereid, copy after Rubens, 1822 c.
Oil on canvas
18 x 14 3/4"

Kunstmuseum Basel, Gift of friends in memory of Prof. Friedrich Rintelen 1933
inv. 1602

COMMENTS

This is a greatly reduced study after the central figure in the group of three nereids in the foreground of Ruben’s “Landing of Maria de’ Medici at Marseilles,” one of the paintings from the Medici cycle which was originally commissioned for the Palais du Luxembourg and moved from there to the Louvre c. 1816. Delacroix must have studied this painting closely by 1822, to judge from his remarks, reported by Andrieu, about how the drops of water on the nereids influenced his own “Barque de Dante." The technique seems consistent with a date of 1822 or earlier: it displays the same thick impasto scored with brushmarks, the pasty-colored lights, the drab olive shadows and warm reflections in the breast that are to be found in parts of the “Barque de Dante;” it is Rubens handled in a manner that still owes much to Géricault.

Delacroix’s original canvas is of an irregular shape on the left edge. The exposed portion of the old canvas on which the original piece is laid down was repainted by the Kunstmuseum’s restorer, who at the same time relined the entire surface.

Lee Johnson, The Paintings of Eugène Delacroix, A Critical Catalog, v. I, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1981, pp. 14-15

SBMA CURATORIAL LABELS

Delacroix initially studied in the studio of Nicolas-Narcisse Guérin (1744-1833), a student of Jacques-Louis David and a celebrated neoclassicist – an artist whose somber palette and sculptural bodies would have been deemed inimical to a Romantic aesthetic. This large-scale study after one of the writhing sea nymphs in an allegorical painting from the monumental series celebrating the life of Marie de Medici (illus.) is eloquent testimony to Delacroix‘s obsession with Peter-Paul Rubens, whose brilliant effects he attempted to emulate. Delacroix was particularly attracted to artists like Rubens and Michelangelo, who were willing to distort the body for expressive purposes. Here his fascination seems to be with Rubens‘ ability to condense multiple aspects of the figure (her backside, near profile, and three-quarters points of view), while effectively communicating the muscular torsion of the Nereid‘s body, as she lumbers through the water.

- Delacroix and the Matter of Finish, 2013