Delacroix first painted the subject of the Roman poet Ovid exiled among the Scythians in 1844 as part of the decorations for the ceiling of the Library of the Palais Bourbon in Paris. The subject concerns the historical events following the Emperor Augustus’s order for the poet to be banished to the Black Sea port of Tomis, then part of Scythia in modern day south east Romania, where Ovid spent his last eight years, writing the forlorn poems such Tristia and Epistulae ex Ponto. Much mystery still surrounds exactly why Augustus exiled the poet, with many laying the blame to his scurrilous and risqué verses. The Scythians were an ancient Iranian people whose way of life was described by Herodotus in his Histories as nomadic and Ovid himself described them as a “wild tribe”, serving as a severe contrast to the refined lifestyle he was used to in the Eternal City.
Nevertheless, Delacroix’s 1859 canvas of the subject, held in the National Gallery, London, depicts the Scythians in a different light. They treat the poet with sympathy and curiosity, in a pastoral scene reminiscent of the works of Claude Lorraine. In the foreground a man milks a large mare, while behind him various figures are casually placed, standing still or reclining peaceably on the grass. A child is nursed in its mother’s arms and shepherds are glimpsed resting. Meanwhile, stretched on a gentle incline, swathed in drapery, Ovid appears to shyly greet the friendly approaches of the inhabitants of the previously supposed savage country. The sublime wildness of nature and misunderstood genius were key concepts in Romantic art, which Delacroix is keen to exploit in the painting.
Ovid among the Scythians was exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1859, the last in which Delacroix participated. At the time of its exhibition, the landscape with its mountains was “universally” praised, while the mare in the foreground was considered strange by some critics. Théophile Gautier greatly admired the painting, ironically naming it the ‘the female of the Trojan horse’. Baudelaire, in his last Salon criticism, called the painting “one of these amazing works… Delacroix knows the design and painting.” But not everyone was pleased with the composition. Maxime Du Camp dismissed it as “a spectacle of irremissible decadence” and went so far as to advise the artist “to return to the literary works that he loves and to the music for which he was certainly born”.
Having provoked negative criticism, even among some of his most fervent admirers, Delacroix decided to work up a second version, this time integrating the figures and landscape and rectifying the alleged problems of scale of the first version. Critics had deemed the unusual composition and strange scale of the characters a particular shortcoming. The second version comprises many elements of the London version, though it features more vivid colours, replacing the barbarian with a large shield on his back with a woman bringing food, while closely harmonising the figures and landscape more in keeping with a historical landscape. Completed a year before the artist’s death in 1862, it was most likely commissioned by a private collector. It was given to Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, in honour of Philippe de Montebello, in 2008.
During his final years, Delacroix suffered from an increasingly fragile constitution. In addition to his home in Paris, he also lived at a small cottage in Champrosay, where he found respite in the countryside. From 1834 until his death, he was faithfully cared for by his housekeeper, Jeanne-Marie le Guillou, who zealously guarded his privacy, and whose devotion prolonged his life and his ability to continue working in his later years. The great artist passed away in Paris on 13 August 1863, aged sixty-five, and was buried in the city’s Père Lachaise Cemetery.