Pompeji in Paris. Die Quatre Saisons (1821) von Eugène Delacroix

The Quatre Saisons by Eugène Delacroix are among the lesser-known and hitherto little-explored works of the French artist. Designed in 1821, the paintings served as decorations for the dining room in the hôtel particulier of the French actor François-Joseph Talma in Paris. Stylistically, the series draws inspiration from ancient art, especially from the Roman wall paintings of Herculaneum and Pompeii that were rediscovered during the eighteenth century. However, rather than imitating models from the past, the artist adapts and rearranges them, thus also revitalising the motif of the four seasons that was very popular for interior decorations in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The paper discusses Delacroix’s four-part cycle as a striking example of both the rediscovery and appropriation of antiquity in nineteenth-century art. In doing so, it examines the artist’s close relationship with ancient art and the way in which Delacroix draws on models from the past and eclectically transforms them for his own artistic needs. The interest for ancient Roman art is also considered according to the role the patron Talma played in the development of the décor.