# The Abduction of Rebecca [View the canonical artwork record]() ## Artwork - Artist: [DELACROIX, Eugène]() - Date: 1801-1850 - Technique: Oil on canvas, 100 x 82 cm ## Commentary As a rich source for exotic and dramatically violent themes, the novels of Sir Walter Scott were immensely popular with Romantic painters. Delacroix, despite his reservations about their literary merit, repeatedly found inspiration in these writings. This picture, painted in 1846 and exhibited in the Salon of that year, illustrates an episode from Scott's Ivanhoe, in which the beautiful Rebecca is carried off by two Saracen slaves at the command of the Christian knight who has long coveted her. Intense drama is created as much by the contorted poses and compacted space as by the artist's use of vivid color. Contemporary critics, including Baudelaire, praised the work's spontaneity and power. ## Related artworks - [A Mad Woman]() - [A Moroccan Saddling a Horse]() - [A Mortally Wounded Brigand Quenches his Thirst]() - [A Vase of Flowers on a Console]() - [A Young Tiger Playing with its Mother]() - [Apollo Slays Python \(detail\)]() - [Apollo Slays Python]() - [Apollo Slays Python]() - [Apollo Vanquishing the Python]() - [Arab Fantasia]() - [Arab Horses Fighting in a Stable]() - [Aspasia]() ## Attribution [Web Gallery of Art]()