SOMEONE, SOMEWHERE, MOST PROBABLY IN EUROPE, OBVIOUSLY, KNOW WHERE THEY ARE – NOT ON PUBLIC DISPLAY BUT BELONGING TO A (SHALL I SAY) ‘CLOSED GROUP.’

It was a privilege to be their custodian for a few years, and to have these excellent prints of them. And, of course, memories that no one can steal.

Cervus fugitivus, forever an ‘elusive presence in my life!

“In immense silence, 
They measure themselves awhile; 
Each suddenly throws himself upon the other; 
Transported, gripped alike, 
Their threatening arms do bend, 
Pressed flank to flank; 
Like a great, uprooting oak, 
Their trunk leans o’er and sways 
Above their entangled knees.”

Delacroix was maybe inspired by Lamartine’s ‘Poetical Meditations’ which describe the two beings entwined like the knotted trunks of the trees looming over them.

The mural is in the Chapel of the Holy Angels, Church of Saint-Sulpice, Paris – based on the story in Genesis 32: 22-32)