The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco have acquired the first painting to enter their collections by Eugène Delacroix (1798-1863), an artist whose work helped to define Romanticism in the visual arts.
Delacroix’s “Portrait of Charles de Verninac” (circa 1826), acquired by purchase from an anonymous American collector with resources from the Roscoe and Margaret Oakes Income Fund, depicts with great liveliness the artist’s nephew, less than five years his junior. They had been close companions since childhood and corresponded frequently as their adult lives separated them.
