Exercices militaires des Marocains

Early in 1832 Delacroix travelled to Morocco with a French diplomatic mission, riding the route from Tangier toward Meknes. Along the way he watched the display Moroccan horsemen call a fantasia, riders standing in their stirrups at full gallop, shouting and firing muskets into the air in clouds of dust. He filled notebooks with the chaos of it. Back in his Paris studio later that year he worked the memory into this canvas, all raised arms, smoke and plunging horses. The trip changed him for good. The strong North African light and colour fed his painting for the rest of his life, and he returned to this one scene again and again, making five versions of it over the next 15 years.