Seen as it is to-day in the Louvre, blackened by time and the neglect from which it suffered for six or seven years before it was placed there, it remains one of the capital pages in the history of modern art.  The effect on the younger generation who saw it fresh from the hand of the master, accustomed as they were to the lifeless effigies of the classic school, was puzzling, and none but the most revolutionary dared approve of it.  With the older painters there was a similar distrust of the impression which it caused.  Yet David—­an artistic kernel encased in an academic husk—­admired it; and so did a swarthy youth who was soon to make his mark and who was a friend and former comrade of Gericault in the atelier Guerin—­Eugene Delacroix.

[Illustration:  DELACROIX.  FROM A PORTRAIT PAINTED BY HIMSELF IN 1837.

This portrait was left by the painter at his death to Mlle. Jenny Leguillon, his housekeeper, and by her was bequeathed to the Louvre in 1872.]

Gericault received a recompense of the fourth class, and, disgusted with his lot, took the immense canvas to London, where it was exhibited with success.  During his sojourn in England he executed a number of pictures in oil and water color, and many lithographs, which are to-day eagerly sought by collectors.  Returning to France full of projects for work, his health began to give way, and on the 18th of January, 1824, he died.  The influence which he exercised had, however, borne its fruits.  Already in the Salon of 1822 Ferdinand Victor Eugene Delacroix, born at Charenton, near Paris, April 26, 1799, had shown his “Dante and Virgil.”

Before considering Delacroix, however, it is best to return to the earlier years of the century, and give J. Dominique Auguste Ingres, whose stern face confronts Delacroix’s portrait, the precedence to which his age entitles him.

“Monsieur” Ingres, as the iconoclastic leaders of the romantic school called him in mock deference, was born at Montauban, August 29, 1780.  His life was fortunate, and his history, which is chiefly that of his works, can be told in few words.  A pupil of David, he received the Prix de Rome in 1801.  He remained in Rome much longer than the allotted four years to which his prize entitled him, and returned there often during his life as to the source of all art.  By portraiture and the constant patronage of the government, the material conditions of his life, which was of a simple character, befitting a man who viewed his mission as that of an apostle preaching the doctrine of pure classicism, were made easy; and the official titles of Member of the Institute, Grand Officer of the Legion of Honor, and Senator of the Empire all came to him with the lapse of years.