Scene in the Jewish Quarter of Constantine by Théodore Chassériau

When Théodore Chassériau's "Scene in the Jewish Quarter of Constantine" hit the auction block in December 2022, it sold for $3.9 million, setting a new record for the 19th-century French Romantic painter.

Chassériau based the painting on sketches he made during an 1846 journey to Algeria. What he brought back was this quiet, tightly framed domestic scene: a sleeping infant suspended in a woven cradle, and two adults who share the work of keeping the child safe. The woman in red grips the rope that rocks the cradle; her calm, direct gaze makes her the emotional anchor. The man in green holds the upper rope with a tenderness his formal robes don't announce.

The hanging cradle itself is a specific detail. It documents a real North African Jewish custom Chassériau observed in Constantine. The artist was only 32 when he completed this canvas, already synthesizing the Neoclassical precision of his teacher Ingres with the warm, shadowed intimacy he admired in Delacroix. He died just five years later, at 37.

The painting now lives at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Next time you're in the galleries, look for the woman's hand on that rope, the moment she begins to pull, the whole scene stirs.