Théodore Géricault from Private Collections

For much of his career, Géricault conceived and executed drawings for his own purposes; he enjoyed a private income, and was not urgently pressed to sell his work. From the English period onward, however, the artist increasingly had markets and sales in mind. The initial impetus of his English journey was to profit from a paying exhibition of the Raft of the Medusa , and he would later capitalize on the French fascination with English motifs and English-styled naturalism in two series of lithographs and a number of small paintings. His finished watercolors of English subjects, particularly the brilliant studies of race horses, were certainly marketable and are related (like his studies of working-class London) to his very successful suites of lithographs of 1821 and 1823 . At Géricault’s posthumous studio sale, the numerous, though summarily identified lots of drawings included thirty-three sketchbooks (now mostly dismembered), along with many drawings and watercolors of his favorite subjects. As Grunchec has related, the drawings of the Géricault sale quickly found their way into the major, private drawings collections of this era and, much later, into public collections. 9 It is fitting that this presentation of Géricault’s wide-ranging drawing practices should be assembled from private collections that share an appreciation for these perennially stimulating works. Sylvain Lavessière, Regis Michel, et. al. Géricault , exh. cat., Paris, Grand Palais, 1991 ; see also Régis Michel (ed.) Géricault , 2 vols, Paris, 1996 , and Géricault: Dessins et estampes des collections de l’École des Beaux-Arts: points de vue contemporains, exh. cat., École nationale supérieure des Beaux- Arts, Paris, 1997 . 3 Germain Bazin, Théodore Géricault. Étude critique, documents et catalogue raisonné , vols 1 – 8 , Paris, 1987 – 1997 4 Nina Athanassoglou-Kallmyer, Géricault , London and New York, 2010 5 Henri Zerner, “Mysteries of a Modern Painter,” New York Review of Books , March 5 , 1992 , 6 Athanassoglou-Kallmyer, 2010 , p. 20 . 7 Lorenz Eitner, “Dessins de Géricault d’après Rubens: la genèse du Radeau de la Méduse,” Revue de l’art , no. 14 , 1971 . 8 Suzanne Lodge, “Géricault in England,” The Burlington Magazine, vol. 107 , no. 75 (Dec. 1965 ), p. 626 . 9 Philippe Grunchec, 1985 , introduction. AMY KURLANDER 1 Lorenz Eitner, Géricault. His Life and Work , London, 1963 , and Philippe Grunchec, Géricault’s Horses, Drawings and Watercolors , New York, 1984 and Grunchec, Master Drawings by Géricault , exh. cat., 1985 2