Etching and drypoint printed in dark brownish black on antique cream laid paper, 1833. 173x215 mm; 6 7/8x8 3/8 inches, full margins. Second state (of 6). Before publication by Cadart and Luquet, Paris, for the Société des Aquafortistes. A brilliant, early and richly-inked proof impression.
Delacroix's (1798-1863) oil on canvas, Arabes d'Oran, completed in 1834, is now in the Tokyo Fuji Art Museum. He made the etching contemporaneously to help promote the subject. Only a handful of early proofs, such as the current etching, were made, and the plate was subsequently re-printed for the Société des Aquafortistes, Paris, during the early 1860s. Delteil 20.
