Housed in the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Bordeaux, this 1826 canvas was inspired by the current events of the Third Siege of Missolonghi by the Ottoman forces, when the city’s inhabitants, following a long siege, decided to attempt a mass breakout to escape famine and epidemics. The attempt resulted in a disaster, with the larger part of the Greeks being killed. Delacroix, like many European artists and intellectuals, was a fervent supporter of the Greek cause. Most of the painting is taken up by the imposing personification of Greece, represented as a young woman wearing traditional costume. Her posture and expression recall traditional religious images of the Virgin weeping over the body of Christ. She is depicted as kneeling, her chest mostly bare, as she spreads her arms in a display of sorrow. The hand of a dead victim can be seen protruding from the rubble, beneath her feet. In the background, a black man wearing a yellow turban, symbolises the enemy, as he plants a flag into the ground.
The image of suffering Greece succeeded in conveying the plight of the Greeks to the French public. The image borrows elements from Christianity, with the blue coat and white robe, traditionally attributed to the Immaculate Conception, reinforcing the analogy to a secular figure of Mary. Greece on the Ruins of Missolonghi triggered an immediate response from the French poet Baudelaire, who would become Delacroix’s greatest critic: “The audacity of Michelangelo and the fecundity of Rubens.” Other critics disagreed though, claiming they would have preferred Delacroix to have been less “exuberant”.