Greece on the Ruins of Missolonghi

In April 1826, after a long Ottoman siege, the Greek town of Missolonghi fell. Its starving defenders tried to break out at night, most were killed, and rather than surrender the town, people blew up their own powder stores. News of it swept through Europe and gave the Greek independence cause a wave of sympathy, and Delacroix finished this within months. He does not show the fighting. Instead a woman in a pale blue dress stands on the rubble, kneeling half in appeal and half in mourning, standing for Greece herself. Under the broken stone at her feet you can make out a hand, a crushed body left in the ruins. Behind her a dark-skinned figure plants an Ottoman flag on the height, so the loss is present in the same frame as the grief.