Tam O'Shanter

Delacroix's Tam O'Shanter of 1825 depicts the climactic scene from Burns's 1790 poem — the drunken farmer Tam watching the witches' dance before his horse Meg escapes with him, losing her tail to the pursuing crones. The Scottish subject demonstrates Delacroix's early engagement with literary subjects beyond Byron and Shakespeare, and his treatment captures the comic terror of Burns's supernatural comedy with the energy appropriate to a subject that required both dramatic action and humor. The painting documents the French Romantic movement's broad engagement with British Romantic literature.

Delacroix captures the nocturnal terror of the scene with his characteristic dynamic brushwork and dark, atmospheric palette. The supernatural figures and the terrified horseman are rendered with expressive energy rather than precise detail.