Théodore Géricault from Private Collections

24 . Five Studies of the Heads of Turbaned Orientals

c. 1822 – 23 Pen and iron gall ink on paper 6 x 7 ¼ inches ( 15 . 3 x 18 . 5 cm)

Collection stamp lower center: Lugt 3604 (Collection Henri Delacroix) Collection stamp lower right: Lugt 2103 b (Collection Pierre Olivier Dubaut) Verso: Portions of an autograph letter, pen and ink : Ceci fait que […] / Qui tient à […] et que j’aimais […] / connaitre […] /et vous aurez […] son humeur amiable et franche, Mademoiselle / Josephine vous répetera que je suis mieux / comme je vous l’ai dit et qu’elle m’a vu / même faisant mes dispositions de départ / Adieu donc jusqu’au revoir . provenance Henri Delacroix, Paris; his sale, Palais Galliera and Hôtel Drout, Paris, March 21 , April 3 – 4 , 1962 , lot 204 ; Pierre Olivier Dubaut, Paris; Private Collection, Switzerland; Jill Newhouse ( 1989 ). exhi b i t ions New York, Jill Newhouse, Selected Drawings , 1989 , exh. cat. by Lorenz Eitner, et. al., no. 1 ; Metropolitan Museum of Art 2000 , no. 22 . A vast profusion of Near Eastern and North African subjects in early nineteenth- century French art and literature attests to an elaborately imagined Orient, inhabited by ‘exotic’ non-Europeans. In the context of Napoléon’s military conquests and France’s continued imperial aspirations during the Restoration, the Romantic Orient was also indirectly shaped by political attitudes about France as a nation and evolving empire. A recurring figure in Géricault’s drawings and lithographs is the Oriental warrior, whom the artist regarded as a compelling, heroic character. He often appears on horseback in the midst of battle, armed with a scimitar and fierce expression, immediately recognizable by his striking costume and headgear, pronounced facial features and moustache. Athanassoglu-Kallmyer’s monograph situates Géricault’s Oriental warriors among his ‘military martyrs and military rebels,’ figures of active resistance who appealed to Géricault’s Liberal, anti-Royalist political positions and overarching identification with struggles for liberty. Unlike Delacroix, who would spend several months in North Africa in 1832 , Géricault never visited the eastern lands in which his warriors are set. The powerfully characterized heads in his Oriental lithographs and drawings, and in works like the present study sheet, are sometimes based on a figure reported to be Géricault’s Turkish servant and model, Mustapha, whom he sometimes posed in borrowed costumes (MMA 2000 , p. 46 ). In the watercolor study of ‘Mustapha’ in the Louvre (fig. 24 ), the subject’s physiognomy and expression are closely observed and carefully rendered, Private Collection