Paintings, Drawings, Sculpture

Eugène Delacroix french , 1798 – 1863

A Lion and a Lioness ( Etudes d’une lionne et d’un lion )

c. 1855 Pencil on white wove paper 6 7 ⁄ 8 x 9 inches ( 17 . 5 x 22 . 9 cm) Estate sale stamp lower center: Lugt 838 a

provenance Delacroix sale 1864 , possibly part of lot 485 ( Lions et lionnes. Etudes de dessins. 43 feuilles ) or lot 487 ( Lions et lionnes. Etudes et croquis à la plume et au crayon. 79 feuilles ) Elizabeth M. Drey, New York, as of 1959 . exhibition Santa Barbara, The Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Drawings of Five Centuries , 1959 , no. 80 . Delacroix recorded numerous visits to the Jardin des Plantes in Paris, where he particularly enjoyed sketching the lions in the menagerie. These visits to the zoo did not simply inspire paintings but were invigorating exercises in looking which opened his eyes not only to the animals there but the trees and surroundings outside the garden. In his 1847 journal he recorded one of these visits: “I had a feeling of happiness as soon as I entered the place and the further I went the stronger it grew. I felt my whole being rise above commonplaces and trivialities and the petty worries of my daily life. . . . Tigers, panthers, jaguars, lions, etc. Why is it that these things have stirred me so much?. . . No doubt about it, this excursion has done me good and has made me feel better and calmer. When I left the museum the trees came in for their share of admiration and added their part to the pleasure of the day.” (Journal entry, January 19 , 1847)