1 / 6
Featured lot selected by the auctions House.
Premium Osenat
518
-
Théodore GERICAULT (Rouen, 1791 - Paris, 1824)
Sketch for th…
See original version (French)
518
-
Théodore GERICAULT (Rouen, 1791 - Paris, 1824)
Sketch for th…
See original version (French)
Estimate €100,000 - €150,000
Voluntary lot
Description
Théodore GERICAULT (Rouen, 1791 - Paris, 1824)
Sketch for the Officer of the Imperial
of the Imperial Guard, charging ;
on the reverse a copy of the Descente de croix by
de croix by Jouvenet
Double-sided canvas, without stretcher
53.5 x 43 cm
Provenance :
- Géricault estate sale, Paris, Hôtel de Bullion (Me Parmentier), 2-3 November 1824
(Philippe Grunchec remembers seeing the purchase slip for this sale in the name of Feuillet de
Conches among his descendants in the 1970s);
- Collection Félix Feuillet de Conches (1798-1887); Collection of his son-in-law Charles Jagerschmidt
(1820-1894) ;
- Always remained in this family.
Bibliography :
- Charles Clément, Géricault. Etude biographique et critique avec le catalogue raisonné de l'œuvre du
master, Paris, 1868 and 1879, n° 43 (L'Officier de Chasseurs) and 174 (Descente de Croix), it mentions
that it belongs to Félix Feuillet de Conches;
- Hans A. Luthy, "Géricaults kopien nach Tizian" in Offentlichen Kunstsammlung Basel, Basel,
1976, pp. 189-199;
- Philippe Grunchec, Tout l'œuvre peint de Géricault, Paris, Flammarion, 1978, p.50, nos. 45a and 45b
(a copy is given on p.147, no. A194);
- Germain Bazin, Théodore Géricault: étude critique, documents et catalogue raisonné, tome II,
Paris, 1987, p.298 and p.438, n°329 (Descente de Croix) and tome III, Paris, 1986, p. 52, pp.184-185,
n°821 (L'Officier de Chasseurs) ;
- catalogue of the exhibition Géricault, Kamakura, Kyoto, Fukuoka, 1987-1988, p.39, reproduced fig. C ;
- Philippe Grunchec, Tout l'œuvre peint de Géricault, Paris, 1991, no. 45a and 45b, reproduced;
- catalogue of the exhibition Les chevaux de Géricault, Paris, Musée de la Vie romantique, 15 May
to 15 September 2024, not exhibited, quoted p.28 and reproduced p.29, fig.12.
With this canvas, painted on both sides, Géricault, who was barely twenty-one years old, paid tribute to the masters of the past, and invented the art of the horse.
masters of the past, and invented Modernity. He broke with the codes of neoclassicism
neoclassicism then dominant. The depiction of his young lieutenant, an anonymous hero plunged
in the upheavals of the Empire, transforms a banal fact, a military genre scene, into an epic
epic historical tableau. It was the first powerful image of French Romanticism, seven years before the
Raft of the Medusa.
The reverse depicts the Descent from the Cross, taken from the famous composition by Jean
Jouvenet's famous 1696 composition for the Eglise des Capucines (Place Vendôme).
Académie Royale and then to the Louvre in 1796. It covers a portrait of a man
infrared examination. Many artists in training reused their canvas, not hesitating to
to recycle previously painted supports for other studies. A pupil of Carle Vernet between 1808
and 1810, then of Pierre-Narcisse Guérin, a student at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris from 1811,
Géricault also trained by copying the masters at the Musée Napoléon (Le Louvre): Titian, Le Sueur,
Rubens, and also Jouvenet (the catalogue of his studio sale lists 250 copies). It seems
natural that our young painter should choose the Descent from the Cross, considered to be
the pinnacle of French painting, in which Jouvenet blends the influence of Rubens and the legacy of
the heritage of Poussin and Le Brun. In a way, one hundred and ten years apart, Jouvenet and
Géricault were faced with the same problem: how to move away from classicism in the case of Jouvenet, and neoclassicism in the case of Géricault,
neoclassicism for the latter, which had become academic and sterile, by reinterpreting Rubens for the vigour and vitality of his work.
the vigour and vitality of his art. It is also worth noting that both artists were born in Rouen, which may have led Géricault to take an interest in the city.
Géricault's interest in the work of his compatriot. He copied it with powerful material and
a bold touch, surprising in a work of this type and a harbinger of his own style.
On the other side of the support, he quickly sketched a first thought of the officer of the chasseurs à cheval.
on horseback, the liveliness and virtuosity of his brushwork conveying the movement and ardour of his chosen subject.
. It was with the large format (3.49 x 2.66 m) now in the Louvre that Géricault, then aged
21 years old, exhibited for the first time at the Salon in 1812. According to Clément, the idea for the subject
an encounter with a grey horse on the road to Saint-Cloud. The animal, rearing up
inspired him, showing him how to magnify the scene and give it a historical significance.
historical significance. It was around this time that the Empire suffered its first setbacks in the Russian campaign. This type
This type of setting was traditionally given over to equestrian portraits of generals, such as David's works
works by David depicting Napoleon at the Saint-Bernard Pass, or by Gros illustrating Murat at the Battle of Eylau, transposed here to the service of a hero unknown to the public: the horse is reared, a violent energy is
violent energy is infused by the diagonal, like the release of a spring, the figure tearing through the space
the space around it (Jean Clay, 1980). To produce this painting, Géricault set up a studio in a back room
in what is now the Passage Jouffroy, which in 1806 housed a coach-hire firm.
coach hire business. This enabled him to have a horse drawn carriage brought to him every morning "dripping with water
or covered in mud" (Clément). He modelled the young lieutenant on one of his friends, Alexandre
Dieudonné. Legend has it that he completed the painting in just twelve days, although several
however, several drawings and the dozen or so preparatory sketches on record bear witness to much more in-depth
probably over five weeks between September and October 1812 (Clément, Bazin).
The Salon opened on 1 November and the Officier de chasseurs was a discreet but notable success
especially for a young artist whose first participation in the event and who had been trying to
the Prix de Rome for only a few months. David himself noticed the painting and
I don't recognise this touch". Dominique Vivant Denon awarded him
a gold medal. Subsequently, the painting changed title several more times (for example "Un
Hussard chargeant").
Our sketch shows the work at different stages of creation. As he would later
for La Méduse, Géricault made a large number of studies in preparation for his large-format work, between reportage and
reinterpretation of classical models. He did not hide the stages of his research, in a very modern "work in progress" method.
modern "work in progress" method. He tests several variations on the uniform, movement
movement, with the presence or absence of the panther-skin saddle (absent from the sketch
sketch in the Louvre). In the upper part, the battle is suggested by the rapid brushstrokes.
The lower part is sketched schematically with a brush: the horse's legs
The early works, including our sketch, the drawing in the Louvre and the sketch of the
Louvre and the sketch in the Piot collection (Japan, private collection), all have the particularity of the horse turning right
horse turning to the right, the flag and the uniform with a buttoned jacket. In a second
second stage, the horse is tinted grey and turned to the left, in sketches in the Louvre, Rhode Island
Louvre, in Rhode Island, and in the Delon collection. Finally, he went back on his initial idea
and composition, removing the flag and lowering the arm holding the sword, while retaining certain
while retaining certain modifications, particularly with regard to the colours. Next came the painting
from the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Rouen, summarising the successive research carried out.
In conclusion, I would like to quote an extract from Régis Michel's essay in the exhibition catalogue
Géricault, Galeries nationales du Grand Palais, 10 October 1991-6 January 1992, Réunion des musées nationaux: "La rhétorique
national museums: "The rhetoric of the painting uses two major tropes: synecdoche and
prosopopoeia. The first consists in taking the part for the whole. The battle is limited to the
one soldier is enough to sum up the war. This has two narrative consequences. The first is
one is visual: the protruding effect. The horse emerges from the frame under the violence of the movement, and the painting expands to the dimensions of reality.
and the painting expands to the dimensions of reality. The hypertrophy of the motif calls for the close-up technique,
which alters the function of the narrative: more expressive than mimetic.
Drama prevails over illusion. The other consequence is syntactic. Géricault founded the
micro-narrative, where linearity gives way to fragments, anecdotes to figures. It was a break with the aesthetics
of the panorama, an integral vision of massive dimensions, like David's Leonidas, in which the viewer
the viewer walks across the canvas, in Napoléon Géricault's famous phrase, turning the narrative into a monologue and the hero into a subject.
monologue, and the hero into a subject.
Our painting belonged to Félix Feuillet de Conches (Paris 1798-1887), a writer, art historian and
art historian and journalist as well as a diplomat. He joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
on Talleyrand's recommendation in 1824. He was office manager in the department of
protocol department. He began to build up his impressive and eclectic collection around 1835, with the help of his
insatiable curiosity and vast erudition: paintings from the Italian Renaissance, French and
French and English works, wax portraits and archaeological artefacts.
artefacts... He published Causeries d'un curieux in 1861, which covers many of his subjects of interest.
of interest.
We would like to thank Philippe Grunchec for kindly confirming the authenticity of this painting by direct examination of the work.
direct examination of the work, on 21 May 2026
See original version (French)
Auto-translation. Refer to original language for legal validity.
Pictures credits: Contact the Auction House
You may also like