Medea about to Kill Her Children

1838

Oil on canvas, 260 × 165 cm · Palais des Beaux-Arts, Lille

A critical success at the Salon of 1838, where the French state bought it; it has been in Lille since about 1840. Lille also has the oil sketch and about thirty preparatory drawings.

Medea clutches her two struggling sons in a cave, the group forming a pyramid.
She glances back as if she hears danger; a shadow falls across her face like a mask.
The dagger, the only upright line in the picture, is set off by white cloth.
Delacroix painted a smaller replica in 1862, now in the Louvre.

When Jason abandoned her to marry a princess, Medea took revenge by killing their children. Euripides made the story a tragedy in 431 BCE.

Image: Wikimedia Commons · Public domain