The Death of Sardanapalus

The Death of Sardanapalus (La Mort de Sardanapale) is an 1827 oil painting on canvas by the French artist Eugène Delacroix, now in the Musée du Louvre, Paris. A smaller replica he made in 1844 is in the Philadelphia Museum of Art. It is a work of Romanticism based on the tale of Sardanapalus, a king of Assyria, from Greek historian Diodorus Siculus's library. It uses rich, vivid and warm colours and broad brushstrokes, was inspired by Lord Byron's play Sardanapalus (1821) and inspired a Hector Berlioz cantata, Sardanapale (1830), and an unfinished Franz Liszt opera, Sardanapalo (1845–1852).