Arabe sellant son cheval

Delacroix went to North Africa only once, in 1832, travelling with a French diplomatic mission to Morocco not long after France had seized Algiers. He was there just a few months, but he filled notebook after notebook, and he drew on those memories for the rest of his working life. This canvas comes more than 20 years later, in 1855, when he had not seen the place for decades. A man in flowing robes leans in against his horse to fasten the saddle, a dagger and a curved sword at his side. Delacroix never returned to that world. Almost everything he painted of it, this small scene included, came from a few crowded months of looking.