This 1828 lithograph belongs to Delacroix's suite of illustrations for Goethe's Faust, commissioned by the Paris publisher Charles Motte to accompany Albert Stapfer's French translation, a project Delacroix conceived after seeing a stage adaptation of Faust in London in 1825. The sheet captures Faust and Mephistopheles riding wildly through the night toward the Witches' Sabbath. French audiences initially met the bold, aggressive lithographs with hostility, but Goethe himself, on seeing them, wrote that Delacroix had “surpassed my own conception” of certain scenes, and the series is now regarded as a landmark of Romantic book illustration.
Jacquard-woven as a soft, double-sided tapestry throw with fringed edges — a warm layer for the sofa or bed.
