Entry of the Crusaders in Constantinople

King Louis-Philippe wanted a history gallery. In 1838 he set Delacroix to paint one of its grandest scenes for the palace of Versailles, and by 1840 it was done. The subject is the Fourth Crusade in April 1204, the day Western knights who had set out for the Holy Land instead stormed and looted Constantinople, the Christian capital of the Byzantine empire. Delacroix does not paint a triumph. Baldwin rides in at the head of the column while the conquered citizens crouch and plead along the roadside, and a smoky, bruised light hangs over the whole city. He built it for a hall of crusade paintings at Versailles. The Louvre took it in 1881 and hung a full-size copy in its place.