Delacroix's Entry of the Crusaders into Constantinople Restored

Eugène Delacroix's "Entry of the Crusaders into Constantinople" has been restored after a year-long conservation treatment that removed yellowed varnish and reinstated the painting's original vibrant colors. The 1840 masterpiece, commissioned for the Château de Versailles and transferred to the Louvre in 1881, depicts the violent sack of Constantinople by Western Crusaders in 1204 with complex moral ambiguity. Scientific imaging during restoration revealed Delacroix's deliberate artistic choices, including hiding a trampled soldier behind banners and using vivid colors to emphasize enslaved women in the foreground.