Peasant Women from the Region of the Eaux-Bonnes

Eugène Delacroix · 1845

Medium

Watercolor, with touches of gouache, over traces of graphite, on cream wove paper, laid down on cream wove paper

Original size

34 × 26.2 cm (13 7/16 × 10 3/8 in.)

Currently held

Art Institute of Chicago

Movement

Romanticism

Painted during Delacroix's 1845 journey to the Pyrenees, this intimate watercolor captures two women from the mountain spa town of Eaux-Bonnes with a directness that feels more like a personal encounter than a formal study. Delacroix traveled to the Pyrenees that year partly for his health, and the works he produced there — quick, observational, alive with local color — stand apart from his large dramatic canvases. In this piece, he works in watercolor with touches of gouache over graphite underdrawing, a technique that lets him layer translucent washes against opaque highlights, giving the women's traditional dress a tactile weight while keeping the composition fresh and unforced. His interest in costume and regional identity, sparked by his earlier North African journey in 1832, runs through much of his work on paper. The painting is held in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago, where it remains one of the more quietly compelling works in their Delacroix holdings. Our hand-painted oil reproduction translates this intimate watercolor into a medium built to last, preserving the warmth of the original palette and the unhurried confidence of Delacroix's line while giving the image a physical presence suited to any wall.