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In “Greece on the Ruins of Missolonghi,” Delacroix embodied Greece as a single allegorical figure.

Delacroix began the painting shortly after the citizens of Missolonghi attempted to liberate their city only to be massacred by the Ottoman Turks in 1825.

Delcroix’s most famous paintings, like “Greece on the Ruins of Missolonghi” and “Liberty Leading the People,” arose out of the turmoil of the 19th century and evoke the uncertainties of our present day.

“Greece on the Ruins of Missolonghi,” from 1826.

Its most prized Delacroixes, including the flag-waving “Liberty Leading the People,” are staying home, but the languid “Women of Algiers” is coming to the Met, as is the impassioned “Greece on the Ruins of Missolonghi,” whose conjoined themes of liberty, nationalism and racial and sexual anxiety have lost none of their relevance two centuries on.