Delacroix's painting depicts a brutal episode of the armed expedition known as
Fourth Crusade (12 April 1204), in which a Crusaders army abandoned their plan to invade Muslim Egypt and Jerusalem, and instead sacked the Christian (Eastern Orthodox) city of
Constantinople, the capital of the
Byzantine Empire. The painting shows
Baldwin I of Constantinople at the head of a procession through the streets of the city following the assault; on all sides are the city's inhabitants who beg for mercy or have been murdered. The painting's luminosity and use of colour owes much to Delacroix's study of the
Old Masters, such as
Paolo Veronese. The painting was exhibited in the
Salon of 1841, where the painterly
romanticism of its style was controversial;
Le Constitutionnel deplored "the confused and strangled composition, the dull earthy colours and the lack of definite contours", but
Baudelaire appreciated the work's "abstraction faite". The painting is used on the cover of the album "
The IVth Crusade" by British death-metal band
Bolt Thrower. ==Notes==