L'appartement du comte de Mornay

Count Charles de Mornay was the diplomat who led the French mission to Morocco in 1832, with Delacroix in his party. Back in Paris, the painter made a portrait of his rooms. The apartment on the rue de Verneuil was lined with blue and white striped fabric, ceiling included, so that it felt like the inside of a tent. A red hanging with sabres covers the wall behind the bed, a leopard skin lies on the floor, and framed pictures crowd the walls. This small canvas was a study for a larger interior with two portraits, the Count receiving the Russian prince Demidoff, which Delacroix showed at the Salon of 1833. That painting was later destroyed. The study survived and belonged to Edgar Degas, and the Louvre bought it in 1918, the year his collection was auctioned after his death.