2023-09-27 17:22:15
By BG and EBR
Published 6 hours ago, Updated 1 hour ago
Eugène Delacroix’s painting The Death of Sardanapalus (detail) returned to the red rooms of the Denon wing of the Louvre on Wednesday after having been restored. Michel Urtado/Louvre Museum
Eugène Delacroix’s masterpiece is once again on display among the large formats of the 19th century, after several months of absence.
Restored for 10 months, The Death of Sardanapalus by Delacroix returns to the picture rails of the red rooms of the Denon wing, Wednesday at the Louvre Museum. Launched at the end of 2022, the restoration of this very large format, which caused a great scandal when it was presented at the Salon in 1827, follows those which concerned The Women of Algiers (in 2021) and Scenes of the Scio massacres (in 2019).
Of all the paintings by Eugène Delacroix (1798 -1863) preserved at the Louvre Museum, The Death of Sardanapalus experienced the most horrors of history. Measuring almost four by five meters, presented at the Salon of 1827, sold by Delacroix in 1847 but only entered the museum’s collections in 1921, it underwent around ten relinings and revarnishings with unfortunate consequences. The preliminary studies and operations already underway have proven, however, that there is no major damage and the painting will have regained its irresistible colorful enthusiasm within the red rooms of the Denon wing in 2023.
Read alsoMajor maneuvers around Delacroix at the Louvre
This canvas, saturated with naked flesh, flamboyantly shows the oriental tyrant Sardanapalus close to defeat, ordering his eunuchs and officers to slaughter his women, his pages, his horses and his favorite dogs… With the reappearance of this frightening and sensual masterpiece, from now on, the famous red rooms find, through the magic of the work of the restorers, a beautiful facet of their 19th century luster.
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