Which French Romantic artist painted 'The Death of Sardanapalus'?

The French Romantic artist who painted *The Death of Sardanapalus* was Eugène Delacroix. He presented the large oil painting at the Paris Salon in 1827, where its violent subject, saturated colour, and turbulent composition made it one of the exhibition’s most controversial works.

The scene comes from the story of Sardanapalus, an Assyrian king described in the ancient account of Diodorus Siculus. Facing defeat, the king supposedly ordered his possessions, servants, and concubines destroyed before killing himself in a great funerary fire. Delacroix also drew on Lord Byron’s 1821 play *Sardanapalus*.

Rather than presenting a restrained classical hero, Delacroix created a crowded, sensual, and chaotic image. The bright red bed, glinting luxury goods, weapons, and twisting bodies pull the eye through a scene of deliberate excess. Its theatrical violence departed sharply from the order and moral clarity prized by Neoclassical painting.

The Louvre’s principal version dates to 1827; a smaller replica made by Delacroix in 1844 is held by the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The painting’s reception helped define the rivalry between Romanticism and academic classicism in nineteenth-century France.