Horseman on the Banks of the River Sebou

(Eugène Delacroix)

Delacroix crossed the river Sebou with Count de Mornay’s party on 12 March 1832 on the outward journey from Tangier to Meknes, and on 7 April on their return. On both occasions he found much to attract his eye and made notes which were perhaps drawn on to create this idyllic recollection of the landscape with bathers twenty six years later: ‘Crossed the Sebou in the morning. Ridiculous embarkation. The horses trying to get away and being beaten to get into the boats. Naked men driving the horses in front of them. Biaz told us while crossing with us that they do not build bridges in order to make it easier to arrest thieves, to levy taxes and apprehend rebels.’[1]

Not all the critics were complimentary about this work; Théophile Gautier wrote: ‘We would have had serious doubts as to the authenticity of The Banks of the Sebou River if we did not already know that the artist had actually made the voyage to Morocco. It is difficult to recognize the African countryside in this cabbage-colored landscape, in these grassy river banks, in these Northern trees, in this river similar to the Seine or the Marne, in which children (sic) bathe and splash around.’[2] Gautier did not perhaps realize the transformation that this harsh landscape underwent in the few weeks following the melting of the snows in the Atlas mountains. Paul Mantz describes this work as ‘an interesting example of Delacroix’s landscape studies … it has a luminous but somewhat strange perspective due to the over-accentuated blue tone. Should I tell you? Well this little painting, of little significance in the work of the master, reminded me of Rubens’s landscapes.’[3] The critic Mathilde Stevens had a higher opinion of this work: ‘a lively and brilliant sketch … a sort of African Normandy with trees, prairies, green hillocks, and which allows me to believe the clouds in the sky are real, strange nature, that one feels is true, and where I find again all the qualities of this noble painter; his understanding of light, his strange harmony, with the simple brilliance of a wild originality.’[4] The artist has shown the river at a point where it was shallower, a group of horsemen have ridden down from the hills and are taking advantage of an opportunity to bathe and cool their horses. Some are naked while a lone mounted figure watches from the riverbank. In the background we see the distant hills crowned with a golden light, the late afternoon sky filled with clouds. This is the only landscape that the artist presented at the Salon. NOTES

[1] Département des Arts graphiques, Louvre, RF 1712 bis, fol. 13 verso and 14 recto.

[2] Moniteur Universel, 21 May 1859.

[3] La Gazette des Beaux-Arts, Salon of 1859, p. 137.

[4] M. Stevens, Impressions d’une femme au Salon de 1859, pp. 33 f.;

PROVENANCE: Marquis du Lau; his sale, 5 May 1869, lot 8, to Fould, 6,500 fr.; sale L., 14 May 1873, lot 24, 5,555 fr.; Alfred Robaut; Constant Dutilleux; his posthumous sale, 26 March 1874, lot 11 (repr. Robaut lithograph), to Malinet, 6,750 fr.; Malinet to at least 1885; Arnold, Tripp & Cie bought it from an unspecified source on 15 May 1886 and sold it on 12 July 1887 (Arch A. Tripp); Théodore Revillon, in 1888 (R Arm); Mme Albert Esnault Pelterie (mauve wax seal of the collection on the back), by 1906, d. c.1938; Mme Germaine Popelin, her daughter; ? Raymond Popelin, her son. Private collection, London.

LITERATURE: Théophile Gautier, Moniteur Universel, 21 May 1859; Paul Mantz, La Gazette des Beaux-Arts, Salon of 1859, p. 137; M. Stevens, Impressions d’une femme au Salon de 1859, pp. 33 f.; L. Rouart, Collection de Madame Esnault-Pelterie, Les Arts, June 1906, pp. 4, 6, repr. p. 6; A. Moreau, Delacroix et son oeuvre, Paris 1873, pp. 195, 274; Alfred Robaut,, Oeuvre complete de Delacroix…, Paris 1885, no. 1346; Moreau Nelaton, Delacroix raconté par lui même, Paris 1916, vol II, pp. 188, 192; R. Escholier, Delacroix, peintre, graveur, écrivain, Paris 1926-29, vol II, pp. 48, vol III, pp. 248, 249, repr. opp. p. 254; R. Huyghe, Delacroix, London 1963; pp. 296, 417; Lee Johnson, The Paintings of Eugène Delacroix, a Critical catalogue 1832-1863, 1986, Vol III, pp.205-6, Vol IV, Pl. 216.

PRINT: Lithograph by Alfred Robaut, 1874.

EXHIBITED: Paris, Salon 1859, no. 826 (’Les bords du fleuve Sébou (royaume de Maroc)’); Paris, 1885, Exposition Eugène Delacroix, no. 138; Paris, Louvre, 1930, Eugène Delacroix. Centenaire du Romantisme, no. 178, repr. Album, p. 96; (on extended loa