Eugène Delacroix

Eugène Delacroix, the rockstar of French Romanticism, was a painter who made canvases smolder with passion and color. He was, as the poet Baudelaire put it, "passionately in love with passion, but coldly determined to express" it. This master of dramatic scenes, from shipwrecks to revolutions, painted with a fervor that left the Neoclassical perfectionists clutching their pearls. Rumor has it his own life was just as colorful. Whispers have long suggested his true father wasn't the man who raised him but the cunning statesman Talleyrand, a theory bolstered by a striking resemblance and convenient political patronage. Another persistent rumor alleges a secret marriage to his devoted housekeeper, Jenny Le Guillou, who remained by his side until death. While these tales remain unproven, they add a touch of scandal to the legacy of a man who lived to paint the drama of the human heart.