Studies of Horses

Jules-Élie Delaunay · n.d.

Medium

Graphite, with ink wash and touches of gouache, on buff wove paper

Original size

22.2 × 26.7 cm (8 3/4 × 10 9/16 in.)

Currently held

Art Institute of Chicago

Movement

Romanticism

Studies of Horses reveals the quiet, working side of Jules-Élie Delaunay — a French academic painter better known for grand public commissions than for the intimate preparatory sheets that made those commissions possible. Delaunay trained under Hippolyte Flandrin at the École des Beaux-Arts and spent years in Rome absorbing the classical tradition before returning to Paris to build a career on monumental religious and mythological subjects. His reputation rested on precision and controlled draftsmanship, qualities on full display here in the layered combination of graphite, ink wash, and white gouache highlights on buff paper — a technique that allowed him to model volume and light without committing to colour. Horse studies of this kind were standard preparation for history painters tackling narrative scenes that required convincing animal anatomy. Delaunay is perhaps best remembered today for his decorative cycle in the Paris Panthéon, completed alongside other leading academic painters of his generation and still visible in the building. The hand-painted oil reproduction translates this intimate study into a format that can live on a wall, preserving the original's careful attention to musculature and weight while giving the composition the warmth and texture that only oil on canvas can provide.