Théodore Géricault from Private Collections

16 . A Peasant Leading a Horse-Drawn Straw Cart

c. 1820 – 21 Graphite on paper 6 ¼ x 8 ⅝ inches ( 16 x 22 cm)

provenance Probably Pierre Olivier Dubaut, Paris (by 1935 ); Hans E. Bühler, Winterthur (by 1956 ); his sale, Christie’s London, November 15 , 1985 , lot 59 . exhi b i t ions Paris, Galerie Maurice Gobin, Exposition de dessins, aquarelles, et gouaches par Géricault , 1935 , no. 57 ; New York, Marie Sterner Galleries, Fir st Exhibition in America of Géricault , 1936 , no. 27 ; Bernheim-Jeune 1937 , no. 142 ; Winterthur 1953 , no. 133 ; Brookville, New York, Drawing the Fir st Line: Discovering European Drawings in Long Island Private Collections , 1986 , p. 62 – 63 ; Metropolitan Museum of Art 2000 , no. 21 .

l i terature Bühler 1956 , no. 39 ; Bazin, vol. VII, no. 2153 and p. 12 , 15 .

Private Collection

Caught in the act of a sturdy leftward stride, his whip held high, an agricultural worker drives two horses pulling a straw cart. This drawing is loosely related to Géricault’s great suite of lithographs on English subjects, Various Subjects Drawn from Life and on Stone , which include several works that focus on the labors of the draft horse. A closer relation is Géricault’s important watercolor, Ploughing in England (fig. 17 ) which, like the present sheet was once part of the Hans Bühler collection. In the watercolor, as in most of Géricault’s explorations of working men and horses, the horse is the hero. The downward or neutral glances of the laboring men underscore their anonymity and they work unaware or indifferent to the viewer’s gaze. The present drawing, by contrast, focuses

on the man, who directly returns the viewer’s gaze with an almost insolent regard of his own. With his tough, raw features and provocative expression, this remarkable figure adds a new dimension to our understanding of Géricault’s realism and his characterizations of labor during his stay in London. (AK)

Fig. 17 Ploughing in England , Private Collection