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Lot Essay
After a formative trip to Italy (1816-1817), the exhibition of his Raft of the Medusa at the Salon in 1819, and a stay in England with his friends Nicolas-Toussaint Charlet and Auguste Brunet, Théodore Gericault returned to France. Following the success in London of a series of twelve lithographs, he was asked by the Gihaut brothers to create new plates. It was in this context that the lithograph corresponding to the present signed drawing, dated 1821, was produced by Joseph Volmar (1796-1865) and Léon Coignet (1794-1880), and printed in June 1823 by Villain. The plate is the sixth (out of twelve) of the series Études de chevaux, for which he reworked some of the plates produced in England, seeking in particular a less diffuse and more striking rendering of light (fig. 1; see Bazin, op. cit., VII, p. 173, no. 2413; J. Munro, ‘La série des “Études de Chevaux”: deux interprétations de la collaboration de Géricault avec Cogniet et Volmar’, in Géricault. Dessins et estampes des collections de l’École des Beaux-Arts, exhib. cat., Paris, École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, and Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum, 1997-1998, p. 127).
The well-known composition, described on the lithograph as ‘a surly horse, muzzled, harnessed to a plastermaker’s wagon and tied to a stable door’, was drawn by Géricault in several studies: two preparatory sketches in graphite in a private collection (Bazin, op. cit., VII, nos. 2416-2417, ill.); a watercolour of less great finish than the drawing offered here, probably drawn on the spot, also in private collection; see ibid., no. 2415, ill.; P. Grunchec, Gericault. Dessins et aquarelles de chevaux, Lausanne and, Paris, 1982, ill. p. 161); and a canvas in another private collection (Bazin, op. cit., no. 2418, ill.). There are numerous differences between these versions, and their chronology is not easily established. However, it seems evident that the present drawing, of greater finish than the others despite the pentimento in the horse’s right foreleg, was made as the direct model for the lithograph, as described by both Philippe Grunchec and Bruno Chenique in their written certificates, confirming the drawings’s authorship.
Both in the drawing under discussion and the painting, a man carrying a bag of plaster on his left shoulder can be seen in the background in the doorway, above which Géricault uses a barred window as a source of light. In the watercolour, on the other hand, the opening only shows the sky and the plastermaker has disappeared.
The well-known composition, described on the lithograph as ‘a surly horse, muzzled, harnessed to a plastermaker’s wagon and tied to a stable door’, was drawn by Géricault in several studies: two preparatory sketches in graphite in a private collection (Bazin, op. cit., VII, nos. 2416-2417, ill.); a watercolour of less great finish than the drawing offered here, probably drawn on the spot, also in private collection; see ibid., no. 2415, ill.; P. Grunchec, Gericault. Dessins et aquarelles de chevaux, Lausanne and, Paris, 1982, ill. p. 161); and a canvas in another private collection (Bazin, op. cit., no. 2418, ill.). There are numerous differences between these versions, and their chronology is not easily established. However, it seems evident that the present drawing, of greater finish than the others despite the pentimento in the horse’s right foreleg, was made as the direct model for the lithograph, as described by both Philippe Grunchec and Bruno Chenique in their written certificates, confirming the drawings’s authorship.
Both in the drawing under discussion and the painting, a man carrying a bag of plaster on his left shoulder can be seen in the background in the doorway, above which Géricault uses a barred window as a source of light. In the watercolour, on the other hand, the opening only shows the sky and the plastermaker has disappeared.