Scenes from the Massacres at Chios

1824

Oil on canvas, 419 × 354 cm. Musée du Louvre, Paris

Greek families sit stunned and dying before an Ottoman horseman after the 1822 killings on the island of Chios. The event was only about two years old when the canvas went on view.

Shown at the Salon of 1824, where the booklet sent visitors to newspaper reports of the massacre.
Look at the baby reaching for its dead mother at the lower right.
Painted between January and July 1824, just in time for the Salon jury in August.
The canvas is often read as a plea for French support of the Greek war of independence. There is no single focus or climax; suffering spreads across the whole foreground.
Bought from the artist by the King's Household in 1824 for 6,000 francs; at the Louvre since 1874.

Image: Wikimedia Commons · Public domain (PD-Art)