Eugène Delacroix

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Eugène Delacroix
1798-1863
Study for Ugolino and His Children
1849
Pencil on paper.
sight: 9 1/4 x 12 3/4 inches
Gift of Michael A. and Juliet van Vliet Rubenstein in honor of the 75th anniversary of the Morgan Library.
1999.29
Notes: 

In Dante's “Inferno”, the first installment of an epic three-part poem written in the fourteenth century, the author recounts the tale of the Guelph leader Count Ugolino della Gherardesca of Pisa. Ugolino died of starvation in 1289 while imprisoned in a tower with his two sons and two grandsons as punishment for having twice conspired with enemies of Pisa (Canto XXXIII). Delacroix chose to represent the moment that Ugolino's son Gaddo begs his father for help. This scene served as the basis for a painting dated 1860 and produced for the art dealer Estienne, now in the Odrupgaard Museum, Denmark (R 1083; Robaut 1063; Johnson 337). In his 1885 catalogue raisonné of the artist's oeuvre, Robaut dated the canvas erroneously to 1849. He also cites a different provenance. Lee Johnson noted there arguably was another, earlier painted version of around 1850 that is now lost, which might be the one Robaut documented.
Robaut recorded the present sheet (Robaut 1064) and a variant in ink and wash (Robaut 1065) in which the figure of Ugolino is placed closer to the center of a pyramidal composition. Another graphite drawing, very close to the Morgan sheet but with more indications of setting and pentimenti, was sold at auction in 2007 (Sotheby's, London, 4 July 2007, lot 220). The Louvre preserves a further pen and ink study signed and dated 1860, which presents the group closer to the picture plane and more compactly.
Johnson posited that the ink and wash drawing (Robaut 1065, unlocated) and the Louvre sheet could date to the 1840s, while the Morgan's pencil drawing was likely undertaken in connection with the 1860 canvas.

Provenance: 
Salander O'Reilly Galleries, Inc., New York, 1986; Michael A. and Juliet van Vliet Rubenstein, New York.
Associated names: 

Rubenstein, Michael, former owner.
Rubenstein, Juliet, former owner.

Bibliography: 

Robaut, Alfred. L'oeuvre Complet De Eugène Delacroix, Peintures, Dessins, Gravures, Lithographies, Catalogué Et Reproduit Par Alfred Robaut, Commenté Par Ernest Chesneau; Ouvrage Pub. Avec La Collaboration De Fernand Calmettes. Paris: Charavay Frères, 1885.
Johnson, Lee, and Delacroix, Eugène. The Paintings of Eugène Delacroix : A Critical Catalogue / Lee Johnson. Oxford: Clarendon, 1981.

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