Faust, Méphistophélès et le Barbet ; Faust, Méphistophélès and the Water Spaniel

London: C.Motte, 1828. Lithograph on Chine appliqué, 9 1/4 x 8 1/8 inches (235 x 206 mm), full margins. First state (of 4). Extremely minor uniform age tone, otherwise in good condition. A superb, richly-inked impression.

[Delteil 61.1]. At an early age Delacroix became a lover of music and literature and had been drawing from the time he entered school.  He expected painting would be a hobby, but on the death of his father he found he had to make his own way in life.  In 1817 he entered the studio of Pierre-Narcisse Guerin; amongst his fellow pupils was Gericault.  His first exhibited work was Dante and Virgil in 1822 in the Salon.

His success in 1822 having brought him fame, Delacroix for a time led a busy social life.  He was a friend of Richard Parkes Bonington, who frequented the studio of Gros, and he became acquainted with Thales Fielding. Tradition has it that after seeing one of Constable's landscapes at a Parisian art dealer's, in the four days remaining before the opening of the Salon, Delacroix re-painted the entire background landscape of his picture, introducing half-tones, broken color and glazes, which gave his canvas its incomparable brilliance.  Like a quintessential modern artist, he revisited themes he had painted decades before, turning out more thoughtful interpretations of the same subjects.  In technique and color, he was a visionary.  He used unmixed pigments more boldly and freely than any artist before him, and in ways that directly inspired painters from Manet and Renoir to Matisse and Picasso.  Compared with other artists, his travels were offbeat.  He made no pilgrimage to Greece or Rome; instead he went to England, where he fell under the spell of the landscapists, notably Constable.  In 1831 he visited Spain, Morocco and Algiers; several important works were a result of this journey.  In 1832, through influence of Thiers, received his first public commission.  From 1832 to 1855 he executed decorative works for the Chamber of Deputies, Library of Luxembourg, Galerie d'Apollon in the Louvre, Salon de la Paix in the Hotel de Ville, and church of St. Sulpice.  Delacroix was  elected to the Academy in 1857 and last exhibited at the Salon in 1859.  He died in Paris in 1863. 
[Schatz, Jean Ershler, Phaidon Encyclopedia, 1978, Phaidon Press,UK, as presented on AskArt.com (Eugene Delacroix)].

According to the British Museum, Delteil mistakenly identified the figure accompanying Faust as Méphistophélès, while in fact it is Wagner, Faust's assistant. See British Museum object number 1924,1014.7.5.