Detail of Lion Hunt by Delacroix in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, June 2010

Lion Hunt
1858
Eugène Delacroix, French, 1798–1863

Dimensions: 91.7 x 117.5 cm (36 1/8 x 46 1/4 in.)

Medium or Technique: Oil on canvas

Classification: Paintings
Type: Genre - Exterior; Animal

Accession Number: 95.179

Beginning in the fifteenth century, Western artists were fascinated by the mystery and exoticism of the Middle East. In 1832, Delacroix made a lengthy trip to Morocco, Algeria, and Spain that provided lasting inspiration for his work. Lion Hunt, painted almost thirty years later, reflects this experience, but it is also influenced by the hunt pictures of the seventeenth-century master Peter Paul Rubens. Swirling around the central figure of the embattled lioness, the composition draws its dynamism from the passionate color and expressive turbulence of Delacroix's innovative style.

Text from: www.mfa.org/collections/object/lion-hunt-31063