Théodore Géricault from Private Collections

23 . Horse at the Door of an Inn

1822 or 1823 Graphite, pen and brown ink, brown and gray wash on paper 11 ¾ × 15 ¼ inches ( 30 × 38 . 8 cm)

provenance A.M. Legentil-Marcotte.

l i terature Clément 1879 ( 1974 ), no. 145 ; François Bergot , Géricault, Tout l’oeuvre gravé et pièces en rapport , exh. cat., Musée des Beaux-Arts, Rouen, 1972 , no. 76 ; Rouen, Musée des Beaux- Arts, Delacroix, La naissance d’un nouveau romantisme , exh. cat., April 4 –July 15 , 1998 , no. 14 , p. 28 (illus.).

Art Cuéllar-Nathan

This precisely drawn and elaborately detailed wash drawing is a preparatory work for the lithograph, Horse at the Door of an Inn (fig. 23 ) from the suite of lithographs titled Études de Chevaux par Géricault , published by Villain in 1823 (See Géricault , exh. cat., Paris, 1991 , p. 389 , under no. 233 for the dating of this series). The print was executed by Joseph Volmar, and was based on the present sheet, which Clément refers to as Géricault’s watercolor study for the print. As Eitner points out in correspondence, important details in the drawing are absent from the lithograph (such as the window drawn above the groom’s head and the pentimenti around the window and the girl’s left hand), thus documenting the drawing as a work conceived before, not after, the lithographed composition. The drawing offers a frank, unidealized description of the figures and their environment, and effective constrasts and nuances of light and dark. (AK)

Fig. 23 Vieux cheval à la porte d’une auberge (Delteil 82 )