Théodore Géricault from Private Collections

11 . Scene from Italian Street Life

c. 1816–17 Pencil over red chalk on paper 6 ⅜ x 8 ¼ inches ( 16 x 21 cm) Collection stamp lower right: Lugt 2103 b (Collection Pierre Olivier Dubaut) provenance Valferdin Collection, Paris; Pierre Olivier Dubaut, Paris; thence by descent; Jill Newhouse ( 1989 ). exhi b i t ions Paris, Hôtel Charpentier, Exposition Géricault-Centenaire , April–May 1924 , no. 169 , exh. cat. by the Duc de Trévise and Pierre Olivier Dubaut; Bernheim-Jeune 1937 , no. 160 ; London, Marlborough Gallery , Théodore Géricault 1791–1824, October–November 1952 , no. 61 ; Paris, Galerie Claude Aubry, Géricault dans les collections privées françaises , November–December, 1964 , no. 86 ; Frankfurt, Schirn Kunsthalle, Géricault—Images of Life and Death , October 18 , 2013 –January 26 , 2014 (Museum voor Schonen Kunsten, Ghent, February 21 –May 25 , 2014 ), no. 2 .

l i terature Clément 1974 , no. 170 (as Scene from Macbeth ); Whitney, p. 48 (illus.).

Collection Andrea Woodner

This dramatic composition was misidentified by Géricault’s biographer, Charles Clément, as a subject from Macbeth and dated to the late period 1820 – 24 . As Eitner pointed out, and Whitney confirms, the drawing belongs to the observations of Italian street life that Géricault recorded in sketchbooks during his stays in Rome and Naples in 1816 – 17 . A woman with a grotesque face is being teased by a boy and a girl. She curses them, and the girl, in response, makes the traditional gesture of the defense against the Evil Eye (malocchio) by extending two fingers in her direction. Correspondence from Eitner, dated July 10 , 1989 , notes that while the use of red chalk is unusual in drawings of this period, the style and subject support a date of c. 1817 .