Interior of a Dominican Convent in Madrid
Ferdinand-Victor-Eugène Delacroix, French, 1798 - 1863
Date:
1831Medium:
Oil on canvasDimensions:
51 1/4 × 63 3/4 inches (130.2 × 161.9 cm) Framed: 66 inches × 6 feet 6 5/8 inches × 6 3/8 inches (167.6 × 199.7 × 16.2 cm)Curatorial Department:
European Painting
W1894-1-2Credit Line:
Purchased with the W. P. Wilstach Fund, 1894
1831Medium:
Oil on canvasDimensions:
51 1/4 × 63 3/4 inches (130.2 × 161.9 cm) Framed: 66 inches × 6 feet 6 5/8 inches × 6 3/8 inches (167.6 × 199.7 × 16.2 cm)Curatorial Department:
European Painting
* Gallery 299, European Art 1500-1850, second floor
Accession Number:W1894-1-2Credit Line:
Purchased with the W. P. Wilstach Fund, 1894
Label:
The subject of this painting is from a popular nineteenth-century English novel, Charles Maturin's Melmoth the Wanderer, translated into French in 1821. A young man forced into a convent as a child undergoes harrowing trials in order to escape his punitive and corrupt surroundings. Here he is shown being dragged before the bishop of Madrid. The artist depicts a cavernous, vaulted room that is actually based on the interior of the Palace of Justice in Rouen, France. Delacroix's use of this decidedly un-Spanish, secular setting may have been an intentional reference to the oppressive link between civic and religious power, a theme prominent in the novel.
The subject of this painting is from a popular nineteenth-century English novel, Charles Maturin's Melmoth the Wanderer, translated into French in 1821. A young man forced into a convent as a child undergoes harrowing trials in order to escape his punitive and corrupt surroundings. Here he is shown being dragged before the bishop of Madrid. The artist depicts a cavernous, vaulted room that is actually based on the interior of the Palace of Justice in Rouen, France. Delacroix's use of this decidedly un-Spanish, secular setting may have been an intentional reference to the oppressive link between civic and religious power, a theme prominent in the novel.
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