The Death of Sardanapalus

1827

Oil on canvas, 392 × 496 cm. Musée du Louvre, Paris

A defeated Assyrian king watches from his bed as his servants kill his women and horses before his own death. Inspired by a play by Lord Byron, the picture caused a scandal.

A late addition to the Salon of 1827–28, it went on view in February 1828.
Look at the huge red bed, which slides diagonally down toward the viewer.
Delacroix worked on it in the second half of 1827, on canvas from the Haro firm; the Louvre restored it in 2022–23.
Bodies, jewels and animals tumble in every direction, with nothing to anchor the center. Christopher Riopelle of the National Gallery, London, in a 2016 lecture, describes the disorder as running through both the subject and the composition.
Unsold until 1846, it passed through several collections before the Louvre bought it in 1921.

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