The Combat of the Giaour and Hassan is the title of three works by
Eugène Delacroix, produced in 1826, 1835 and 1856. They all show a scene from
Lord Byron's 1813 poem The Giaour, with the Giaour ambushing and killing Hassan, the Pasha, before retiring to a monastery.[1] Giaour had fallen in love with Leila, a slave in Hassan's harem, but Hassan had discovered this and had her killed.
This version shows the Giaour and Hassan, both on horseback, fighting in a gorge.[6] A Turk escorting Hassan kneels beside the Giaour's horse, trying to cut its legs with his knife.[6]
1835 version
Now in the
Petit Palais in Paris, the second version.[1] Unlike the 1825 version, it focuses entirely on the two riders.[1][7]
1856 version
This work is a variant of the two previous versions[8]
References
^
abcde(in French) Jean-Pierre Digard (ed.), Chevaux et cavaliers arabes dans les arts d'Orient et d'Occident, Éditions Gallimard et Institut du monde arabe, 27 November 2002, 304 p. (
ISBN2-07-011743-X), p 261
^Roger J. Porter, 'A serpent in the coils of a pythoness : conflicts and self-dramatization in Delacroix's journal', in Autobiography, Historiography, Rhetoric: A Festschrift in Honor of Frank Paul Bowman, Rodopi, 1994, 302 p. (
ISBN9051835760 et 9789051835762)
^(in French) Edmond Estève, Byron et le romantisme français, Slatkine, 1973, 560 p., p. 196.
^
ab(in French) Chenou, Notice sur l'exposition des produits de l'industrie et des arts qui a eu lieu à Douai en 1827, Wagrez ainé, 1827, p. 83-84.
^(in French) Yves Sjöberg, Pour comprendre Delacroix, vol. 3 de Collection Beauchesne, Éditions Beauchesne, 1963, 229 p., p. 127
^(in French) Alfred Robaut, Ernest Chesneau and Fernand Calmettes, L'œuvre complet de Eugène Delacroix: peintures, dessins, gravures, lithographies, Charavay Frères, 1885, page 346