The Combat of the Giaour and Hassan is the title of three works by the French Romantic painter Eugène Delacroix, produced in 1826, 1835 and 1856. They all show a scene from Lord Byron's 1813 poem The Giaour, with the Giaour ambushing and killing Hassan, the Pasha, before retiring to a monastery.[1] Giaour had fallen in love with Leila, a slave in Hassan's harem, but Hassan had discovered this and had her killed.
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1826 version
In 1824, Delacroix recorded in his diary his experience of reading The Giaour and Childe Harold's Pilgrimage,[3][4][5] probably in their 1819–1824 French translations by Amédée Pichot.[1] In 1826, Delacroix completed his first painting of the combat of Giaour and Hassan, showing the two on horseback, fighting in a gorge.[6] A Turk escorting Hassan kneels beside the Giaour's horse, trying to cut its legs with his knife.[6]
This version was acquired by the Art Institute of Chicago in 1962.[7]
1835 version
Now in the Petit Palais in Paris, the second version.[1] Unlike the 1825 version, it focuses entirely on the two riders.[1][8]
1856 version
This work is a variant of the two previous versions.[9]
References
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