Théodore Géricault from Private Collections

13 . Bust of a Man with Souvenirs of “The Raft of the Medusa” (A Clenched Hand and a Bent Leg)

1819 Pen and gall ink on paper 5 x 8 inches ( 12 . 8 x 20 . 3 cm)

Inscribed lower center: dessin de Géricault fait à la magdelaine près Fontainebleau Collection stamp on verso: Lugt 2103 b (Collection Pierre Olivier Dubaut)

provenance Pierre Olivier Dubaut, Paris; Private Collection, France (by 1964 ); Jill Newhouse ( 1989 ). exhi b i t ions Bignou 1950 , no. 54 ; Winterthur 1953 , no. 181 ; Paris, Galerie Claude Aubry, G é ricault dans les collections privées francaises 1964 , no. 54 (illus.); Metropolitan Museum of Art 2000 , no. 20 . l i terature Lorenz Eitner, Géricault’s Raft of the Medusa , London, 1972 , p. 161 , no. 69 (fig. 68 ); Bazin, vol. VI, no. 1977 (see also no. 1997 A: tracings of the hand and leg by Alexandre Colin). This sheet of pen and ink studies belongs to a particularly poignant moment in Géricault’s life and career. In the wake of the disappointing reception of The Raft of the Medusa at the 1819 Salon (it was not purchased by the government and sparked politically polarized reviews), Géricault suffered immense exhaustion and self-doubt. The enormous painting represented a contemporary news event of almost unimaginable horror and explosive political ramifications. In 1816 , the frigate Medusa of the royal navy, en route to the colony of Senegal, ran aground and was irreparably damaged. While the higher ranking officers and the new governor of the colony boarded the six available lifeboats, the remaining 150 or so passengers were loaded onto a pitifully inadequate, makeshift raft constructed out of the Medusa ’s mast. Ropes connecting the lifeboats to the raft were to toe it to shore, but the officers panicked and cut the raft adrift. On the thirteenth day of the raft’s odyssey, fifteen survivors were rescued by a British ship, the Argus (five more died before the Argus reached Senegal). Two of the survivors published an account of the ordeal (which included a mutiny, cannibalism, punishing exposure to the elements, illness, madness and murder) in November 1817 . related l i terature Athanassoglou-Kallmayer, p. 117 ff. Private Collection