Ferdinand-Victor-Eugene Delacroix was born on April 26, 1798, in Charenton-St-Maurice, France. In 1815 he became the pupil of the French painter Pierre-Narcisse Guerin and began a career that would produce more than 850 paintings and great numbers of drawings, murals, and other works.

In 1822 Delacroix submitted his first picture to the important Paris Salon exhibition: Dante and Virgil in Hell. His next Salon entry was in 1824: Massacre at Chios. The French government purchased it for 6,000 francs.

Impressed by the techniques of English painters such as John Constable, Delacroix visited England in 1825.In 1833 Delacroix painted a group of murals for the king's chamber at the Palais Bourbon. He continued doing this type of painting, including panels for the Louvre and for the Museum of History at Versailles, until 1861. Much of the architectural painting involved long hours on uncomfortable scaffolding in drafty buildings, and his health suffered. He died on Aug. 13, 1863, in Paris. His apartment there was made into a museum in his memory.