Mephistopheles Flying, from Faust (1828): Artwork and History

Mephistopheles Flying, from Faust (1828) is in the Art Institute of Chicago collection. The museum lists its creator attribution as Eugène Delacroix French, 1798-1863.

The work and its context

The Art Institute of Chicago describes the work:

This nightime scene depicts the demon Mephistopheles flying above a cityscape. The stark contrasts of light and dark emphasize his ghoulish form, accentuated with sharp claws and toenails. This lithograph is the prologue to Eugène Delacroix’s series illustrating key episodes from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s drama Faust. An ambitious German scholar, Faust makes a deal with Mephistopheles to gain fame and fortune but, in return, Faust loses his soul and morality.

Object facts

• Title: Mephistopheles Flying, from Faust
• Date: 1828
• Artist attribution: Eugène Delacroix French, 1798-1863
• Place of origin: France
• Medium: Lithograph in black on white wove paper
• Dimensions: Image: 27 × 23 cm (10 11/16 × 9 1/16 in.); Sheet: 42.9 × 29 cm (16 15/16 × 11 7/16 in.)
• Type: Print
• Department: Prints and Drawings
• Reference number: 1930.1256

Collection credit

John H. Wrenn Memorial Collection

View the original

Explore the artwork in the Art Institute's collection, including its image and the museum's current catalogue details.

The description above is credited to the Art Institute of Chicago and reused under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0; HTML formatting has been converted to plain text. Other catalogue metadata and the public-domain image are provided under CC0 1.0.