Few images in nineteenth-century art are as charged with psychological violence as medea furiosa, schizzo, 1836 ca by Eugène Delacroix. Created around 1836, this work captures the artist’s fascination with the most harrowing moment of Euripides’ tragedy: Medea’s vengeance against Jason. Delacroix returned to this subject several times, but this sketch is especially prized for its raw immediacy—an unfiltered window into his creative process at the height of Romanticism’s stormy passions. At the center of the composition, Medea clutches her children, wild-eyed and desperate, moments before she commits her infamous act.

Her body twists away from unseen pursuers, her arms a shield as much as a prison. The children’s faces are a study in terror and innocence, their small bodies pressed close to their mother, unaware of her resolve. Delacroix’s energetic lines and dramatic contrasts of light and shadow heighten the sense of impending catastrophe.

Unlike Angelica Kaufmann’s more restrained Medea Hesitating to Kill Her Children, Delacroix’s vision is all turbulence and motion, capturing the instant before reason gives way to horror. The precise medium of this sketch remains uncertain, but its expressive force has made it a touchstone for scholars of Delacroix and the Romantic movement. There is no record of a formal commission; rather, it seems to have been a private exploration, possibly a preparatory study for later paintings or lithographs on the same theme. The sketch’s whereabouts have shifted over the years, passing through private collections and exhibitions before entering the public eye.

Today, it stands as a testament to Delacroix’s relentless pursuit of emotional truth, marking a pivotal moment in his lifelong dialogue with myth, violence, and the extremes of the human heart.