REGNAULT, Henri
(b. 1843, Paris, d. 1871, Buzenval)

Summary Execution under the Moorish Kings of Granada

1870
Oil on canvas, 302 x 146 cm
Musée d'Orsay, Paris

This painting reflects the artist's fascination with Granada's Alhambra Palace, as well as his morbid predilection (here using a historical pretext, taken to an extreme) for severed heads. The crimson blood splashed on the steps, the decapitated body, and the severed head itself impressed an enthusiastic Théophile Gautier with their realism, which he imagined to have been studied at first hand in Morocco.




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