Hamlet: Hamlet Attempts to Kill the King

The dramatic scene depicted in Hamlet: Hamlet Attempts to Kill the King by Eugène Delacroix, created in 1843, is a superb example of Romantic printmaking. This work, rendered as a lithograph, captures the intense, charged moment from Shakespeare’s tragedy, focusing on the dark confrontation between Hamlet and Claudius. Delacroix, the leading proponent of French Romanticism, executed this piece as part of a significant series illustrating the play, a project that occupied the artist intermittently for nearly two decades.

Delacroix developed a profound artistic affinity for Shakespearean drama, translating the psychological depth and violence of the source material into potent visual art. Unlike traditional engraving, the lithograph medium allowed Delacroix to achieve painterly effects, using broad areas of shadow and intense light contrasts typical of his dynamic style. Produced in France during a period of fervent artistic enthusiasm for English literature, this series demonstrates Delacroix’s masterful ability to convey emotional turmoil and dynamic action solely through the monochrome discipline of the printmaking process.

As one of his most recognized contributions to the graphic arts, the lithograph series on the subject of Hamlet remains central to understanding Delacroix’s output later in his career. The classification of this object as a Print highlights its specific technical and commercial role in nineteenth-century French art distribution. This historically important image of Hamlet: Hamlet Attempts to Kill the King is housed in the permanent collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art.