The Abduction of Rebecca

The Abduction of Rebecca is a mid-19th century painting by French artist Eugène Delacroix. Done in oil on canvas, the work depicts the a scene from Sir Walter Scott's novel Ivanhoe in which the heroine Rebecca is abducted. Delacroix produced the painting during the height of the French Romanticist Movement, and presented the work at the Paris Salon of 1846. The 1846 version of Abduction is currently in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which describes the work as "one of Delacroix’s greatest paintings".

In 1858 Delacroix created an almost identical work for the Paris Salon of 1859; the second version of Abduction is in the collection of the Louvre.

Executed in Oil on canvas, measuring 39 1/2 x 32 1/4 in. (100.3 x 81.9 cm), the surface rewards close looking. Eugène Delacroix builds the composition through layered glazes and a tightly controlled palette, letting cool shadows recede so that the warm, lit passages step forward.

Look closely and the painting opens up. Objects you might pass over — a folded letter, a half-drawn curtain, the angle of a glance — were placed to be read. The apparent casualness is staged — objects and gestures are arranged to read as a moment caught rather than composed.

Housed at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the painting has passed through the hands of collectors, dealers, and institutions before reaching public view — a provenance that is itself part of the object's story.

“A silence so complete it becomes its own witness.”