In large, colourful paintings, lions, tigers, and hunters on horseback fight to the Death.

But Delacroix had most likely never seen such scenes, nor even wild animals in their natural habitat (although Barbary lion was not extinct in Morocco until the 1960s).

Instead, he used detailed studies of animals in zoos and of the people and material culture of North Africa to create his pictures.

The dramatism so typical of Romanticism is created here by energetic brushstrokes and the contrast of complementary colours - red and green, blue and orange - and bright and dark patches.

Delacroix made at least two sketches of the painting, which now are in the collections at Musée d'Orsay and Nationalmuseum respectively.