Eugène Delacroix

During his 1832 voyage with the Comte de Mornay to North Africa, Delacroix experienced several challenges to his desire to record the people and environment in drawings. The French delegation was regarded warily and sometimes with hostility, and the artist often drew and made notes surreptitiously. At times, however, he found some sitters willing to allow him to draw their likeness for compensation. For this study of a seated man in Moroccan clothing from Tangier, we have some sense of when and where Delacroix found his model. Another sheet depicting the same man shown full length is in a private collection. That sheet bears an inscription that translates as "2 March promenade with Mr. Hay, dined with him." Delacroix's partner on the stroll was Edward Drummond-Hay, the British Consul in Tangier. The local man that Delacroix drew must have been part of Hay's retinue and a willing sitter as he posed standing, wearing his white burnoose over an open tan jacket and an embroidered shirt, with yellow babouche, and sitting, with his burnoose removed. Maurice Arama identified a further inscription in the artist's small green-covered sketchbook in the Louvre (RF 39050, folio 23r) that may refer to the sitter as a soldier stationed with the consul: "the man at the house, soldier short tunic, white culottes like the jews."
In his journal entry for the day, Delacroix muses on his visual impressions of the evening: "Outing with M. Hay. Dined at his house. The foot sidewise in the stirrups sometimes. The light from the side on the edge of the men's faces. The shadow on white objects has a strong blue reflection. The red of the saddles and the turban, almost black."