Young orphan in the cemetery

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Young orphan in the cemetery (Jeune orpheline au cimetière) (Eugène Delacroix)
Young orphan in the cemetery
(Jeune orpheline au cimetière)
Eugène Delacroix , about 1824
Oil on canvas
65 × 55 cm
Louvre , Paris

Young orphan in the cemetery (original French title Jeune orpheline au cimetière ) is a romantic painting by Eugène Delacroix , which was created around 1824. It shows a young woman in front of a desolate landscape, a cemetery, who looks up fearfully. The picture belongs to the collection of the Louvre in Paris and is in the Sully Pavilion , second floor, room 950.

Description, interpretation and background

The picture has the dimensions 65 × 55 cm and is carried out using the technique of oil on canvas . In 1906 it went to the French state from the collection of Étienne Moreau-Nélaton . It was also known by the German title of orphan in the cemetery .

A young woman is sitting against the background of a desolate cemetery with black crosses, partially overturned white gravestones, the remains of a building and cypress trees on the horizon. The right hand rests on her thigh. The top of her dress has slipped off her left shoulder, directing the viewer's gaze to the right. The woman is staring wide-eyed up at something outside of the picture. Her gaze is full of fear, shock and horror, her mouth slightly open. Individual tears can be seen in her right eye and on her cheek. The face is flushed. This picture, in contrast to the usual work of the history painters of the time, to which Delacroix also belonged, was created after a living model.

The art critic J. Emil Sennewald understands the picture as “painting incarnate” and writes that it is not only the “romantically yearning gaze of the young woman” “that grips the viewer, but rather the embodiment of an experienced pain that is in dramatic colourfulness unfolds on the canvas. ”The cultural director of the former Collège des Bernardins , Vincent Aucante, looks at the picture from a Catholic point of view and writes:“ [She] shows an expression that does not reflect pain or crying, as one would expect given the context would ", asks the question:" Is it a silent dialogue with what is not painted and what is beyond the visible sky? "and comes to the conclusion:" We can read the orphans' wordless prayer on their lips Preserving hope and perceiving an afterlife after death. ”The influence of Spanish painting, especially that of Francisco de Goya , on the work of Delacroix and especially this B ild was the subject of an exhibition at the Musée d'Orsay and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in 2002/2003.

Detail of the picture Scènes des massacres de Scio from 1824, with the motif of the young woman in the middle left margin

Delacroix created the work in his early creative period, it was long considered one of the preliminary studies for his later painting Scènes des massacres de Scio , also from 1824, but is viewed as an independent work, although it can be viewed in the context. The historical background of the dramatic scenes that Delacroix painted at that time was the Greek Revolution with the well-known massacre of Chios , which the Ottomans carried out on the Greek population. The art historian and Delacroix expert Alain Daguerre de Hureaux clearly assigns it to the Scènes des massacres de Scio . The model was a beggar woman hired by the artist, whose face appears in the final left-hand margin, albeit with her eyes closed (Delacroix's diary February 17 and 21, 1824). The Young Orphan is an exemplary picture that clearly documents the intention and goals of the artist: Drawing precision, contours that stand out clearly from the background, a fine brushstroke for the skin and a strong brushwork for the clothing, which in its execution is spontaneous and creates a lively effect.

Provenance

The painting initially belonged to Frédéric Leblond (1832–1872) and went to his widow. After her death in 1881 it came into the possession of her cousin Ernest Gebaüer. It was then acquired at the end of May 1904 by the French collector and painter Etienne Moreau-Nélaton. It came to the Louvre as a gift in 1906. From there it was handed over to the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in 1907 and returned to the Louvre in 1934.

Exhibitions (selection)

  • 1824: Under the title Étude in the Salon de Paris , together with the picture Scènes des massacres de Scio
  • March 6 to April 15, 1885: Eugène Delacroix exhibition at the École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts de Paris as Femme souliote, orpheline, au cimetière. (at the time owned by Mr. Ernest Gebaüer)
  • March 29 to July 23, 2018: Exposition Delacroix in the Louvre, Paris and afterwards from September 17, 2018 to January 6, 2019 at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

reception

  • Eugène Delacroix - Jeune orpheline au cimetière Scène de massacres de Scio… (= DiaLouvre ). Réunion des musées nationaux (France), Paris 1989 (27 slides , there No. 12).
  • Giancarlo Scalia: Les yeux d'une fille dans un cimetière: pour quintette (flûte, clarinette, vln, vlncelle et piano) Composition on the emotions in the girl's eyes, inspired by the painting.

literature

Web links

Commons : Young orphan in the cemetery  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Review by J. Emil Sennewald on the exhibition in the Louvre 2018 on the Weltkunst website .
  2. ↑ Vincent Aucante: on the website Église catholique en France about the exhibition in the Louvre 2018.
  3. ↑ Manet-Velázquez. La manière espagnole au XIXe siècle (Paris - 2002). Les Fiches d'Exposition. Encyclopædia Universalis, Paris 2016, ISBN 978-2-341-00961-4 (reading sample, French, books.google.de ).
  4. ↑ Versions de travel around the "Jeune orpheline au cimetière". relire.net.
  5. ↑ Delacroix: L'Orpheline au cimetière eternels-eclairs.fr.
  6. ↑ Alain Daguerre de Hureaux: Delacroix. The complete work , Belser Verlag, Stuttgart a. Zurich 1994, ISBN 3-7630-2305-4 , p. 53
  7. ↑ Alfred Robaut: Orpheline au cimetière . In: L'oeuvre complet de Eugène Delacroix, peintures, dessins, gravures, lithographies . Paris, Charavay frères, Paris 1885, p. 24 (French, text archive - Internet Archive ): «Apartment au docteur Gebaûer, héritier de madame veuve Leblond»
  8. ↑ Jeune Orpheline au Cimetiere. Ministère de la Culture, accessed February 13, 2020 (French).
  9. ↑ Eric Bietry Rivierre: Exposition Delacroix au Louvre: ce qu'il faut lire, ce qu'il faut voir . In: Le Figaro . March 29, 2018 (French, lefigaro.fr ).
  10. ^ Tilman Krause: Eugène Delacroix: This artist only knew painting as a massacre . In: Die Welt Online . April 16, 2018 ( welt.de ).
  11. ^ Les Yeux d'une fille dans un cimetière pour quintette musiccentre.ca