Eugène Delacroix
Algerian Jewess with her Maid (Juvie D’Alger)
France, 1833
engraving
Museum Collection
Must Know
Eugene Delacroix (1789-1863) was a French Romantic artist who is seen as the leader of the French Romantic movement within the arts. he was fond of Orientalism, an artistic movement in France between 1810 and 1890 where artists created fantasy exotic and oriental portrayals of the far East, North Americas and Africa. Orientalist works were at times inspired by imaginary visions of the exotic. Delacroix, however, if one of the few orientalist artists that actually traveled to Morocco and Algeria. The depiction of the life of the Algerian Jew and her maid are both realistic and based on Delacroix’s travels to Algeria as well as distant and enigmatic, made in a time where this depiction was one of the firsts view of distant cultures for the French public.
Delacroix has made various artworks based and inspired by life in Algeria.
More Info
Orientalism was an artistic movement motivated by a European voyeurism of the ‘other’. Works often depicted motifs and setting from Turkey, Egypt, India and Algeria, to name a few. It was a romanticisation of exotic beings and landscapes which French artists essentially brought to view fro the French public.
