Hamlet and His Mother

In the pictureA young man in black, his sword point lowered, glares toward a red curtain while a woman in a white headscarf and red cloak grips his arm from behind. This is Act 3, Scene 4 of Hamlet, just after Hamlet has stabbed to death Polonius, who was hiding behind the curtain in his mother's chamber to eavesdrop. In the darkness below the curtain, the trace of a fallen body can be seen.

BackgroundDelacroix saw an English company perform Shakespeare in Paris in the 1820s and returned to Hamlet for the rest of his life. Starting in 1834 he produced a series of Hamlet lithographs over more than a decade, and this small oil repaints one scene from that series. The canvas is only 27 cm tall, yet the tension comes through intact in the contrast between the red curtain and the black clothing and in the two figures leaning in opposite directions.

Puzzle tipAt higher piece counts, the broad red expanse of the curtain on the right gets confusing. Gather the pieces with clear shapes first, such as the two figures' faces and hands and the sword, then split the curtain into vertical strips, using the way its color darkens from top to bottom.