The Autumn - Bacchus and Ariadne

Delacroix never set foot in Italy. The ancient wall paintings dug out of Pompeii and Herculaneum from the 18th century onwards reached him as engravings, in the bound volumes of the Antiquités d'Herculanum. For this Autumn, from a set of four Seasons, he went to two of those engraved murals. From one he took Ariadne, waking on the island of Naxos just as Theseus sails off without her. From the other he took Bacchus, the wine god, coming upon her asleep. He joined the two moments and placed their hands meeting at the centre of the canvas, beside the big cats that draw his golden chariot. French painters of the 17th and 18th centuries had already used this couple to stand for autumn, the season of the grape harvest. Shortly before his death in 1863, Delacroix was still reminding himself to give those volumes back to a friend.