1832
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
A Young Black Woman Fetching Water is a 1832 by Eugène Delacroix, a Romanticism work, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
You see a young Black woman in a long dress and headscarf, bending to lift a water jar. Delacroix sketched her in 1832 while traveling in North Africa. She’s likely enslaved, doing daily chores. The lines are quick and light, as if he drew her in a few minutes. It’s not a grand scene—just a quiet moment he noticed and saved. To see how other artists showed daily life in North Africa, look up *The Cleveland Museum of Art*.
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.
Delacroix replicated and slightly changed the image in this watercolor as a wood engraving published in the popular journal L’Illustration in 1844.
Read the full account in the museum source.
Ferdinand Victor Eugène Delacroix ( DEL-ə-krwah, -KRWAH; French: ; 26 April 1798 – 13 August 1863) was a French Romantic artist who was regarded as the leader of the French Romantic school.
See the richer artist page
