Delacroix, Eugène (1798-1863)
Mort de Sardanapale (Death of Sardanapalus)
1827
Oil on canvas, 392 cm × 496 cm
Musée du Louvre, Paris
“The rebels besieged him in his palace… Lying on a superb bed, at the top of an immense pyre, Sardanapalus ordered his eunuchs and the officers of the palace to slaughter his wives, his pages, even ‘his horses and his favorite dogs; none of the objects which had served for his pleasures were to survive him… Aïscheh, a Bactrian woman, did not want to suffer a slave to kill her, and hanged herself on the columns which supported the vault… Baleah, cupbearer of Sardanapalus, finally set fire to the pyre and rushed there himself.” [extract from the second supplement to the Salon booklet of 1827–1828] (Louvre)
Study:
Delacroix, Eugène (1798-1863)
La Mort de Sardanapale, esquisse
1826–1827
Musée du Louvre, Paris
Compare:
Delacroix, Eugène (1798-1863)
La mort de Sardanapale
1844
Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia
See also:
• Byron, George Gordon Noel, 6th Baron Byron (1788-1824)