Today I went to the Eugene Delacroix Museum, the home in which he lived the last six years of his life while painting the murals for the nearby Church of St. Sulpice. It is in the Left Bank neighborhood, and while wandering around trying to find the little courtyard in which I’ve previously seen the museum, I thought, “Hmmm, I’ve been lost here before.” This seems to be a common refrain in my mind… 
Monsieur Delacroix is famous (to me) for painting “Liberty Leading the People,” displayed in the Louvre. Although all the descriptions in the museum were in French, I can read them and I didn’t see any mention of this painting which shows Lady Liberty leading the French people taking up arms under the tricolor banner representing freedom and liberty. Some say the young boy wielding the gun in the painting next to Liberty was the inspiration for the Gavroche character in Victor Hugo’s novel, Les Miserables. When the French government first bought the painting, officials decided it was too inflammatory and removed it from public view. However, following the end of the French Revolution and the reign of King Louis Philippe, it was finally put back on display by Napoleon III. (This is a poor picture of the postcard I bought.)
Born to an ambassador, Delacroix was highly educated and traveled extensively—North Africa and Spain, for example. This influenced his work which included a wide range of subjects and styles: portraits, religious subjects, scenes from history and literature, occasional flower pieces, and landscapes. He also did many drawings and sketches of subjects (animals, women in African costumes, etc.) which he then incorporated into his art, some of which was very precise and some which was very free and messy.
The museum includes three rooms of his apartment—the drawing room, living room, and library—plus his studio (atelier), which he designed with high ceilings, large windows, and a skylight. He looked out into the back yard garden which inspired him as he did the religious murals for the St. Suplice Church. Among his famous portraits is one he did of friends, the writer George Sand with her lover, musician Frederic Chopin. The paintings were consequently cut apart, although the individual portraits exist today.
Monsieur Delacroix is another famous French person that I’ll be visiting in the Pere-Lachaise cemetery when Suz gets here this weekend. Now, I think I'll head to the Louvre and visit his famous (to me) painting.
