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Combat of the Giaour and the Pasha

1827
Not on view
The Oriental subjects of early-nineteenth-century authors provided a source of inspiration for Romantic painters. Lord Byron's Giaour was a favorite of both Gericault and Delacroix. Byron claimed that the tale of a tragic love triangle, involving the Giaour (infidel), the Pasha Hassan, and the Pasha's beautiful concubine, was based on the story of a young Venetian overheard in a Levantine coffee house. Soon after the publication of the French translation in 1823, Delacroix read the poem and noted in his journal the "exchange of two stares, that of the dying man and that of the murderer." This vigorously rendered lithograph captures the confrontation between the Pasha, whose angry stare glazes over as he succumbs, and the Christian, who confronts his own deed with horror.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Combat of the Giaour and the Pasha
  • Artist: Eugène Delacroix (French, Charenton-Saint-Maurice 1798–1863 Paris)
  • Date: 1827
  • Medium: Lithograph; first state of two
  • Dimensions: Sheet: 16 × 11 in. (40.6 × 27.9 cm)
  • Classification: Prints
  • Credit Line: John J. McKendry Fund, 1996
  • Object Number: 1996.424
  • Curatorial Department: Drawings and Prints

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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