The Crayfish at Longchamps

Description

In The Crayfish at Longchamps, two enormous crustaceans carry an unlikely company of riders in Eugène Delacroix’s political satire. Rather than a natural-history scene, the creatures become comic vehicles for press censors and their allies. The strange procession gives backward movement a pointed visual meaning, turning an animal’s familiar association into a criticism of people charged with restricting public expression.

Made in 1822 and printed by Charles Motte, the lithograph responded to new French press restrictions. An old woman represents the royalist newspaper La Quotidienne, while the surrounding riders embody censorship and conservative authority. Delacroix makes political argument through a surreal gathering rather than a solemn allegory. The work’s interest lies in its combination of absurdity and precision, where impossible mounts give a concrete, memorable form to the accusation that their riders are looking backward.

Read our guide to giclée prints or browse the Eugène Delacroix collection.