Eugène Delacroix (Charenton-Saint-Maurice 1798-1863 Paris)

Delacroix executed a number of works during the mid-to-late 1820s which represented models wearing similar Greek Souliot costume. Another example of the same costume can be seen in his Portrait of Count Demetrius de Palatino, exhibited at the Salon of 1827 and now known through copies in the Cleveland Museum of Art and in a private collection (L. Johnson, The Paintings of Eugène Delacroix: A Critical Catalogue 1816-1831, I, pls. 184-5, II, nos. R33-34). There are also two oil sketches at the Louvre showing figures in Greek costume, datable to 1824-5 (Johnson, op. cit., I, pls. 24-5, II, nos. 30-1). At around this date, Delacroix wrote in his journal that he had borrowed 'les costumes grecs et persans, indiens, etc.' (cited in Johnson, op. cit., p. 24).