Study of Jacopo Brought before His Father, the Doge, for "The Two Foscari"

Study of Jacopo Brought before His Father, the Doge, for "The Two Foscari"

Eugène Delacroix

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Delacroix interpreted a moment of high drama in this sketch based on "The Two Foscari," a tragic play by the British poet Lord Byron. The Doge, seated on the throne, has sentenced his son Jacopo to torture and then exile for treason. His wife, doubled over in grief, clutches Jacopo and looks entreatingly toward her father-in-law. Delacroix expressed dissatisfaction with the perspective in this composition and put the project on hold until 1854, when he decided to complete the painting for display at the 1855 Exposition Universelle in Paris.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Study of Jacopo Brought before His Father, the Doge, for "The Two Foscari"Study of Jacopo Brought before His Father, the Doge, for "The Two Foscari"Study of Jacopo Brought before His Father, the Doge, for "The Two Foscari"Study of Jacopo Brought before His Father, the Doge, for "The Two Foscari"Study of Jacopo Brought before His Father, the Doge, for "The Two Foscari"

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.