More tweets about art and books to end the weekend. The Delacroix exhibition at the @metmuseum (& Eric Gordon’s review in @TWSculture) gives me a good excuse to hop on my hobby horse and point out that Delacroix loved to paint scenes from Walter Scott’s novel Ivanhoe. (1/)
He was especially taken by the scene in which an evil Knight Templar, with the help of his Saracen slaves (spoils from the Crusades), abducts Rebecca, “the beautiful Jewess.” This 1846 depiction of The Abduction of Rebecca is in the Met, and...(2/) 
...this 1858 version is in the Louvre.
Rebecca and the Wounded Ivanhoe (1823?): as they’re both imprisoned in Torquilstone, Rebecca gives Ivanhoe play-by-play as their rescuers storm the castle. (Alas, nobody says, “Good luck storming the castle”—the world would have to wait until The Princess Bride for that.)
Spoiler alert: The Death of Bois-Guilbert (pencil study) /5
"'Art thou in thy senses, Israelite?' said the Norman, sternly--'Has thy flesh and blood a charm against heated iron and scalding oil?'"
Front-de-Boeuf and Isaac (1829) 6/
artic.edu/aic/collection…
Front-de-Boeuf and Isaac (1829) 6/
artic.edu/aic/collection…
“Think not of it, valiant warrior!” replied she; “thou shalt die no soldier's death, but perish like the fox in his den, when the peasants have set fire to the cover around it.”
Fronte-de-Boeuf and the Witch (1829) 7/
artic.edu/aic/collection…
Fronte-de-Boeuf and the Witch (1829) 7/
artic.edu/aic/collection…
Countless other painters from the Romantic period through the Victorian also used Scott as an inspiration. His novels and poems were up there with the Bible and Shakespeare as popular subject matter. Here's an engraving based on a Turner print for The Abbot. (?/)
Scott encouraged them by dropping hints re: what scenes were worth painting w/ lines like, "Had there been painters in those days capable to execute such a subject" & "It was one of those effects which a painter loves to represent." Below: Millais, The Bride of Lamermoor (end)
Bonus round: Delacroix—The Holy Clerk of Copmanhurst and Coeur de Lion.
This Delacroix work depicts the scene in Ivanhoe when a disguised King Richard (secretly returned from the Holy Land) spends a night drinking and singing with Friar Tuck.
This Delacroix work depicts the scene in Ivanhoe when a disguised King Richard (secretly returned from the Holy Land) spends a night drinking and singing with Friar Tuck.
*Lammermoor
