Medea, after Delacroix

Medea, after Delacroix, painted around 1880 and now in Zurich's Kunsthaus, is Cézanne's copy of Delacroix's 1838 Medea About to Kill Her Children — a work depicting the sorceress of Greek mythology who murdered her children to revenge herself on Jason. Cézanne was a lifelong devotee of Delacroix, copying his works repeatedly through his career as a form of artistic homage and learning. By making copies of Delacroix's most dramatically charged subjects, Cézanne simultaneously honored the Romantic master and tested his own evolving technique against an established touchstone. The Kunsthaus Zürich holds one of Europe's finest collections of Swiss and international twentieth-century art alongside Old Masters.

Oil on canvas interpreting Delacroix's original through Cézanne's own constructive method — the dramatic Romantic color and chiaroscuro translated into his characteristic analytical brushwork. Copying Delacroix did not mean imitating his style; Cézanne's version necessarily reflects his own pictorial preoccupations even while respecting the source composition.