The Blacksmith

When Delacroix's studio was sold after his death in 1864, this canvas appeared in the catalogue as Arabs Shoeing a Horse, and that is exactly what it shows. One man in a white turban holds up a hoof, another crouches beside him with a tool in his hand, and the horse stands patiently under a red blanket against a bare wall, with an anvil in the corner. Delacroix painted it in 1853, more than 20 years after his journey to North Africa. The first buyer paid 2,400 francs for it. When that buyer's collection came up at auction in 1906, his heirs bought it back for five times the price. It was sold to a museum in Wuppertal in 1941, came back to France in 1948, and hangs today in Room 804 of the Richelieu wing.