Théodore Géricault from Private Collections

15. Three Men Unloading a Cart

1820 – 21 Watercolor over pencil on paper 8 ½ x 11 ⅝ inches ( 20 . 8 x 28 . 5 cm)

provenance Colnaghi’s, London ( 1997 ).

Private Collection

Géricault’s observations of the realities of work and poverty in England, the world’s capital of industry and commerce, took shape in prints, drawings, and watercolors, rather than large compositions. This watercolor was unknown before being published by Colnaghi in 1997 . Executed during the artist’s stay in England, it demonstrates the mastery of watercolor that Géricault acquired, partly through study of the great English practitioners of the medium. Eitner, in 1995 , noticed the “nervously spontaneous drawing beneath the thin color washes making this a particularly attractive example of his most personal late manner.”