Delacroix's Moroccans: Art and Masculinity

The Women of Algiers in Their Apartment is arguably Eugène Delacroix’s best-known work from his trip to Morocco in 1832, and the attention scholars have paid to it has obscured a crucial fact about Delacroix’s Moroccan subjects: most of his paintings of North Africa depict men rather than women.

After serving as a diplomat’s companion on a mission to Morocco, Delacroix went on to devote over three-quarters of his massive North African oeuvre to the military prowess, effective leadership, equ...