Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

Drawing for "Hamlet" [drawing].

Accession number
PML 140541.1
Creator
Delacroix, Eugène, 1798-1863, Attributed to.
Published
1864?
Credit line
Bequest of Gordon N. Ray, 1987.
Notes
Item mounted at the front of a copy of Victor Hugo's William Shakespeare, the volume issued as part of a set of his collected Oeuvres complètes, published in Paris by J. Hetzel in 46 volumes between 1880-1883 (see PML 140539-84).
The drawing and volume in which it has been inserted appear to have formerly belonged to the engraver Fortuné Méaulle; the Gordon Ray copy of Hugo's Oeuvres complètes is evidently an author's presentation copy, with 6 of the 46 volumes containing inscriptions by the author to members of the Méaulle family. Cf. Ray.
Description
1 drawing.
Inscriptions/Markings
With the Delacroix estate stamp, bearing his initials "E.D" in red ink, at lower right.
Provenance
Fortuné Méaulle; from the library of Gordon N. Ray.
Summary
Preliminary drawing for one of a series of sixteen published lithographs illustrating act III, scene ii of Shakespeare's Hamlet (Paris : Dusacq, Michel Levy & Pagnerre, 1864), and showing the figure of Hamlet standing at left, with his hand on his hip and a mantle over one shoulder, looking right, as a thin and ragged player holding a pipe approaches him from that direction.
Classification
Department