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Arch of Morning Glories, Study for "A Basket of Flowers"

1848–49
Not on view
This vivid pastel is a study for a painting in the Museum’s collection, Basket of Flowers, one of five "flower portraits" intended for the Salon of 1849. In February of that year, Delacroix wrote of the series, "I have tried to fashion pieces of nature, such as they present themselves to us in gardens, simply by bringing together, within the same frame and in a highly unlikely manner, the greatest possible variety of flowers." Here, Delacroix observes one variety: a thick, furled arch of white morning glories, which would provide the framework for an upended basket of flowers in the painted version. To effect the organic sprawl of the arch, Delacroix intertwined forest, moss, and chartreuse green pastels, setting them against a pale blue sky.

Delacroix approached this subject with the same sense of drama that he did his narrative subjects. As art critic Theophile Silvestre wrote in his obituary for Delacroix, "He was a master painter, with sunshine in his mind and storm in his heart. Over the course of forty years, he touched the entire range of human passions with his magnificent brush, sometimes fearsome and sometimes tender, going from saints to warriors, from warriors to lovers, from lovers to tigers, and from tigers to flowers."

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Arch of Morning Glories, Study for "A Basket of Flowers"
  • Artist: Eugène Delacroix (French, Charenton-Saint-Maurice 1798–1863 Paris)
  • Date: 1848–49
  • Medium: Pastel on blue paper
  • Dimensions: 12-1/16 x 18 in. (30.6 x 45.7 cm)
  • Classification: Drawings
  • Credit Line: Bequest of Miss Adelaide Milton de Groot (1876-1967), 1967
  • Object Number: 67.187.4
  • Curatorial Department: Drawings and Prints

More Artwork

More Artwork
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Studies of Horses, Eugène Delacroix French, Graphite and traces of brown ink on laid paper
Studies of Horses
Eugène Delacroix
A Bearded Man, Standing, and a Classical Head, Eugène Delacroix French, Pen and brown ink on tracing paper (mounted on heavy wove paper)
A Bearded Man, Standing, and a Classical Head
Eugène Delacroix
1815–63
Les Français peints par eux-mêmes encyclopédie morale du dix-neuvième siècle. Paris, L. Curmer, 1840-1842.
Eugène Delacroix
19th century
La Pietà, Eugène Delacroix French, Etching on chine collé; second state of two
La Pietà
Multiple artists/makers
1852
Studies of a Goat, Eugène Delacroix French, Graphite on wove paper
Studies of a Goat
Eugène Delacroix
1798–1863

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