A Young Black Woman Fetching Water (1832): Art, History and Details

A Young Black Woman Fetching Water (1832) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Eugène Delacroix (French, 1798–1863).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

In 1832, the French Romantic artist Eugène Delacroix was invited to accompany the Count de Mornay, ambassador to the Sultan of Morocco, on a journey to Spain, Morocco, and Algeria. While there, he created this watercolor depicting a young woman—likely an enslaved African—as she engaged in domestic work. The drawing was one of 18 that Delacroix included in an album given to the count as a souvenir of their travels.

Object facts

• Title: A Young Black Woman Fetching Water
• Date: 1832
• Creator attribution: Eugène Delacroix (French, 1798–1863)
• Culture: France
• Type: Drawing
• Technique: Watercolor and graphite, heightened with gouache on paper
• Dimensions: Support: 32.4 x 25.9 cm (12 3/4 x 10 3/16 in.); Matted: 34.9 x 27.9 cm (13 3/4 x 11 in.); Sheet: 23.5 x 16.4 cm (9 1/4 x 6 7/16 in.)
• Collection: DR - French
• Department: Drawings
• Accession number: 2023.123

A detail from the museum

Delacroix replicated and slightly changed the image in this watercolor as a wood engraving published in the popular journal L’Illustration in 1844.

Collection credit

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.