Window mode follows your eyes with your camera, in this browser only: no picture or position leaves your device.
Lion of the Atlas Mountains
Eugène Delacroix (printed by E. Ardit (French, active 1828-1834))
1829
- Medium
- Lithograph in black on light-gray China paper laid down on ivory wove paper (chine collé)
- Classification
- Dimensions
- Image: 33 × 46.5 cm (13 × 18 5/16 in.); Sheet: 47 × 62.5 cm (18 9/16 × 24 5/8 in.)
- Culture
- France
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago, Prints and Drawings
- Credit line
- The Joseph Brooks Fair Collection
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Little Ones profiles and older: it shows gentle subjects for the very young. How works are placed
View at the Art Institute of Chicago
About this work
Delacroix’s largest pair of pendant prints features a monumental lion (seen here) and a regal tiger (1927.1645), presented in a kind of face-off. Ancient Roman games regularly pitted Barbary lions and Bengal tigers against each other. Into the late 19th century, they were still made occasional enemies for entertainment and profit, as in one heavily wagered bout to the death in India. While this particular big cat may appear passive compared with the ravening lion, the tiger usually triumphed in these showdowns.
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
