Étude de Femme Vue de Dos
Related Images
Étude de Femme Vue de Dos
| Artist | Eugène Delacroix (French, 1798 – 1863) |
| Date | 1830 |
| Medium or Technique | Etching on laid paper |
| Dimensions | 4 3/8 x 6 1/4 inches |
| Collection | Syracuse University Art Galleries |
| Accession Number | SUAC 1966.1173 |
| Credit Line | Syracuse University Art Collection, gift of Mr. Harry and Maria Wickey |
Description
Eugène Delacroix’s Étude de Femme or Study of a Woman, an etching completed in 1830, is an intimate and personal image that serves as a litmus test for how female nudity was represented in western European art in the early decades of the nineteenth century. Drawing upon the traditions established by acclaimed Spanish Baroque painter Diego Velázquez in his The Toilet of Venus (The Rokeby Venus) and heralding Edouard Manet’s controversial Olympia, Delacroix’s composition represents the growing craze for depicting female nudes that Honoré Daumier would satirize in his 1865 print targeting the surfeit of Venus-related images at the Paris Salon.