Eugène Delacroix, having rejected the norms of Academicism in favor of Romanticism and having explored various romantic strands, knits them together in the Death of Sardanapalus (1827-8).

The thirty-year-old painter vivifies his emotionally stirring painting of the death of the Assyrian king with beautiful colors, exotic costumes, and tragic events, depicting the besieged king watching impassively as guards carry out his orders to kill his servants, concubines, and animals.

The literary source is a play by Byron, although the play does not specifically mention any massacre of concubines.