The Death of Sardanapalus
1827 · Oil on canvas · Musée du Louvre, Paris
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About this work
- Artist
- Eugène Delacroix (1798–1863)
- Year
- 1827
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Original size
- 392 × 496 cm
- Collection
- Musée du Louvre, Paris
- Movement
- Romanticism
The Assyrian king Sardanapalus reclines on a vast red bed and watches, unmoved, as his concubines, pages and horses are slaughtered around him on his orders, so that nothing he has enjoyed will survive his defeat. Delacroix took the story from Byron's play of 1821 and from the ancient historian Diodorus, and he painted the enormous canvas, nearly five metres wide, in the second half of 1827 for the Salon that opened in Paris that winter. Its swirling diagonal composition, its heaped gold and jewels and its frank violence scandalised the critics, and the state declined to buy it. Delacroix kept it in his studios for eighteen years before selling it to a private collector in 1846. The Louvre finally acquired it in 1921; a smaller replica of 1844 is in Philadelphia.
This exhibition-poster edition shows the whole work beneath original typography set in-house. The original is in the public domain.
Where it works
A vast red bed, heaped gold and open violence in a swirling diagonal, a picture for a study, den or dramatic dining room at 24×36 in black. Deep red, charcoal or ochre; it hangs alone and is not for a child's room.
- Style
- Exhibition poster of a Romanticism painting
- Era
- 19th century (1827)
- Orientation
- Portrait
- Palette
- cream & beige
- Mood
- grand
- Rooms
- living room, dining room, dorm room, hallway or entryway
- Good gift for
- housewarming, art lovers
Size. Prints at 12×18, 16×24, 24×36 in — 12×18 for a shelf, desk or a gallery-wall grid; 16×24 above a desk, console or in a hallway; 24×36 as the statement piece above a sofa or bed.
Framing. Exhibition posters sit best in a slim black frame with no mat — the typeset margin is the mat.
Pairing. Pairs as a set of three with other famous painting prints (10% off three or more).
Details & materials
Shipping & returns
Is this the whole painting, or a crop?
Is The Death of Sardanapalus in the public domain?
What is it printed on?
When was The Death of Sardanapalus painted, and in what medium?
What size works above a sofa or bed?
About this design
The Madten promise
A fine-art print
The same artwork as a clean fine-art print — the image shown large with a minimal caption.
The full-bleed edition
The same plate printed edge-to-edge, filling the whole sheet — bold and immersive.
