Pirates africains enlevant une jeune femme

By 1852 the Barbary corsairs, raiders from the North African coast who had seized ships and captives in the Mediterranean for centuries, had largely disappeared. France had taken Algiers in 1830. Delacroix painted this in 1852 and sent it to the Salon the following year, choosing a scene from the older world of Romantic poetry. Victor Hugo's collection Les Orientales, published in 1829, includes a Pirates' Song about corsairs carrying off a young nun, and the Louvre suggests the picture may draw on it. If so, Delacroix changed the victim. His young woman wears no veil or habit, only a yellow dress and gold jewellery. Several men are hauling her into a boat at the foot of a rocky shore while an oarsman stands ready. The signature and date are in the lower left corner.