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The Death of Hamlet

Artist Eugène Delacroix (French, 1798–1863)
Title The Death of Hamlet (Mort d'Hamlet)
Date Ca. 1843
Medium Graphite on paper
Dimensions Image (irregular): 5 1/8 × 5 5/8 in. (13 × 14.3 cm)
Sheet (irregular): 5 1/8 × 5 5/8 in. (13 × 14.3 cm)
Framed: 13 × 15 × 13/16 in. (33 × 38.1 × 2.1 cm)
Credit Line William Lowe Bryan Memorial, Eskenazi Museum of Art, Indiana University
Accession Number 57.19

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About this Work

In addition to his paintings and other graphic work, Eugène Delacroix is known for his dramatic illustrations to texts by Sir Walter Scott, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, and William Shakespeare. He drew this preparatory sketch in reverse as a study for a lithograph illustrating Act 5, Scene 2 of Hamlet. The dying Hamlet is shown supported by his friend Horatio. In the print, this figure group occupies the lower left foreground of a larger tragic scene. Hints of tracery and an irregular edge suggest that these figures may have been redrawn from a previous sketch or that it was cut down from a larger drawing. It has been suggested that the visage of Hamlet may be based on Charles de Verninac—Delacroix’s nephew—although he had died almost a decade earlier.


1957, Indiana University Art Museum purchase from Weyhe Gallery, New York, NY (with funds from James S. Adams through the William Lowe Bryan Memorial)

Provenance research is ongoing for this and many other items in the Eskenazi Museum of Art permanent collection. For more information about the provenance of this artwork, please contact the department curator with specific questions.

January 16–March 3, 1985, "Drawings from Indiana University Art Museum Collections," Special Exhibitions Gallery, Indiana University Art Museum, Bloomington, IN

May 18–June 27, 1982, "Homage to James S. and Elizabeth G. Adams," Indiana University Art Museum, Bloomington, IN

October 27–November 13, 1976, "Selections from the James Adams Memorial Collection," Indiana University Art Museum, Bloomington, IN

June 11–August 11, 1968, "The Academic Tradition: An Exhibition of Nineteenth-Century French Drawings," Indiana University Art Museum, Bloomington, IN

Author William Shakespeare

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"The Death of Hamlet | Collections Online." Collections Online. Sidney and Lois Eskenazi Museum of Art, Indiana University, 2025. https://artmuseum.indiana.edu/collections-online/browse/object.php?number=57.19