Eugene Delacroix "Waterloo" Original Etching


Here we are offering a very fine and rare etched image of Eugene Delacroix "Waterloo" Original Etching AFTER his work in oil, and etched by A. P. Martial, a practice totally accepted by Delacriox and other artists of the period for work in oils to be etched by well respected engravers working with the artist.

The lovely etching and drypouint was Published in Gazete des Beaux Arts, printed by A Carbart, of Paris. The etched work measure 6 by 8 inches (Plate mark) and in good condition on Laid paper, inscribed as shown.


Among the subjects painted by Delacroix for the Chapelle des Saints-Anges (the Chapel of the Guardian Angels) at the church of Saint Sulpice in Paris, Jacob Wrestling with the Angel is without doubt one of his most powerful compositions. The scheme for the chapel murals - also including Heliodorus Driven from the Temple, and St Michael Defeating the Devil - presents three Biblical scenes featuring angels as warrior-like messengers of the redeeming power of God. At first glance, Jacob Wrestling with the Angel (as related in Genesis: 32) celebrates the beauty of Nature, with its huge trees and twisted trunks. But its chief subject remains the strange pair of wrestlers, their struggle a symbol of Man’s spiritual quest, during which Jacob is injured but not defeated. In this late work, finished in 1861, Delacroix embarks on his own, ultimate aesthetic quest.


Delacroix received the commission to decorate a chapel in the church of Saint Sulpice in Paris by decree of the Préfecture de Seine, on April 28, 1848, issued by the Fine Arts division and its director, Antoine Varcolliers. Unexpectedly, he changed the original theme to the Guardian Angels, noting in his diary that the decision was taken "on their very Feast Day," October 2, 1849. Interrupted by other more urgent projects - notably the central section of the ceiling in the Apollo Gallery at the Louvre (1850-51), the paintings for Paris City Hall (1852-54) and the great retrospective of his work for the Universal Exhibition of 1855 - and further complicated by the technical difficulty of the work, the decorations for the chapel (the first on the right entering through the West door) were finally inaugurated on July 31, 1861, two years before the artist’s death.

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