Eugene Delacroix (1798–1863), Le fantôme sur la terrasse, 1843

Delacroix worked on his series of sixteen lithographs illustrating Hamlet on his own initiative and with many interruptions from 1834 until 1843, when the first proofs were ready for printing. Inspired by Act I, Scene V, this scene shows Hamlet recognizing the ghost of his father. With its close-up view of the two figures and the reduced setting, the composition's focus is on the expressions and the reactions of father and son. Although the series was negatively received at the time of publication, it is now considered to be among Delacroix's graphical masterpieces.

Delacroix, Eugene (1798–1863), Le fantôme sur la terrasse, lithograph, 25.7 x 19.0 cm, 1843; source: By permission of the Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, DC, Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial 3.0 Unported License.