A Corner of the Studio

1830 was the year Paris rose against its king in three days of July fighting, the year Delacroix painted Liberty striding over the barricades. This small canvas comes from the same years and could hardly be quieter. It shows a corner of a studio, a black cast-iron stove, a few draped cloths and props, and no one in the room at all. There are no heroes and no history here, only the warm clutter of a working painter set down for its own sake. Some scholars even doubt the corner is Delacroix's own studio. The stove and those few cloths were all it needed to hold his attention.