Fine Art, Furniture, Decorations and Jewelry

Oil on canvas, unsigned, lined, inscribed 'E. Delacroix - 1848. Reproduit...Tome III - page 147 - duc. Coll. H.D.' on the stretcher. 13 1/2 x 16 1/2 in., 18 1/2 x 21 1/2 in. (frame). Note: This painting closely resembles Eugène Delacroix's Marphise

(1852) in the collection of the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore. In Ludovico Ariosto's epic poem, Orlando Furioso

(c. 1516-1532), the female warrior Marphise knocks the knight Pinabel to the ground after his mistress mocks her companion, Gabrina. Marphise then demands that the mistress give her clothing to Gabrina. In the work in the collection of the Walters Museum, Pinabel can be seen in the background and Gabrina is clearly depicted on the back of Marphise's horse. Though we do not have a complete provenance of this work, a nearly identical painting is pictured in Raymond Escholier, Delacroix: Peintre, Graveur, Ecrivain v. 3

(Paris: H. Floury, 1929), p. 147 (as noted on the back of the stretcher). Escholier notes that this version of Marphise

was in the collection of Henri Delacroix, a prominent psychologist, philosopher, and Dean of the Faculté des Lettres de Paris. Works from Henri Delacroix's collection were sold on March 31st, 1962 at Palais Galleria in Paris, including Eugène Delacroix's Hamlet and Horatio in the Graveyard

(1827-28), now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY.