THEODORE GÉRICAULT (1794-1824) Study for the Raft... Lot 29

THEODORE GÉRICAULT (1794-1824) Study for the Raft of the Medusa (recto); Study of a reclining man, left arm raised (verso) pen in brown ink, brown wash, white highlights (insolate) pen and brown ink, brown wash, heightened with white (darkened paper) 20 x 27 cm (7 7/8 x 10 5/8 in) Footnotes: 西奧多-席里柯(1794-1824) 美杜莎之筏(正面); 一个躺着的男人，左臂抬起(反面) 羽毛笔，棕色油墨，棕色水洗，白色亮出被烘托 Provenance Hippolyte Walferdin (1795-1880), Paris, already in 1845; his sale, Paris, Hôtel Drouot, April 12-16, 1880 no. 292 ('Étude pour la Méduse. Ink drawing heightened with white. On the back: Étude également pour la composition de la Méduse') (80 francs with lots 91 and 93). With Claude Aubry, Paris, 1964. Exhibitions Paris, Galerie Aubry, Géricault, 1964, no. 77, ill. Los Angeles, County Museum of Art and other venues, Géricault, 1971-1972, no. 81, ill. (recto). Paris, Didier Imbert Fine Art, '20 ans de Passion' Alain Delon, Dessins, Spring 1990, no. 43, ill. (recto and verso). Lyon, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Géricault. La folie d'un monde, 2006, no. 79, repr. p. 149 (recto). Bibliography C. Blanc, Histoire des peintres français au XIXe siècle, Paris, 1845, vol. I, pp. 427-428 and 442. C. Clément, in Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 1867, drawings no. 104. C. Clément, Géricault. Étude biographique et critique avec le catalog raisonné de l'œuvre du maître, Paris, 1868 and 1879, drawings no. 115. R. Rey, 'Géricault ou l'archange aboli', Les Nouvelles littéraires, November 12, 1964, p. 8, ill. (verso). J. Fischer, 'Géricault in French Private Collections', The Connoisseur, January 1965, p. 52. L. Eitner, 'Reversals of Direction in Géricault's Compositional Subjects', in Stil und Überlieferung in der Kunst des Abendlandes, Berlin, 1967, vol. III, p. 133, note 19. L. Eitner, Géricault's Raft of the Medusa, London, 1972, no. 20, pp. 149-150, fig. 18 (recto) and 60 (verso). L. Eitner, Supplément au catalog raisonné de l'œuvre de Géricault par C. Clément, Paris, 1973, supplement, no. 406, p. 466. L. Eitner, Géricault. His Life and Work, London, 1983, pp. 173, 343, note 102. P. Grunchec, in cat. exp. Master Drawings by Géricault, New York, Pierpont Morgan Library and other venues, 1985-1986, p. 153, under no. 80, ill. (verso). G. Bazin, Théodore Géricault. Étude critique, documents et catalog raisonné, Paris, 1994, vol. VI (Le Radeau de la Méduse et les Monomanes), nos. 1964 and 1981, pp. 19, 23, 116-117 and 124, ill. (recto and verso). T. Buck, Géricaults Floss der Medusa 1819-2019, Würzburg, 2019, p. 38, fig. 16. The ten or so overall studies known today for Le Radeau de la Méduse make it possible to follow the development of Géricault's masterpiece step by step, and the successive changes to the composition (see, in particular, Bazin, op. cit., nos. 1925, 1927, 1928, 1940, 1948, 1952, 1958, 1960, 1961, 1967 and 1968). The drawing in the Delon collection marks an important moment in the realization of the Louvre painting completed in 1819: Géricault has, compared to the previous general studies, tightened the framing to show only the raft itself in the foreground, thus emphasizing the dramatic aspect of the scene. The composition seems fixed and will not be radically altered. Some of the key figures (the father holding his son's body on the left, the corpse seen from behind just to one side, the two men kneeling, arms raised, towards the center...) are already depicted almost as they will appear in the painting. Above all, this is the first drawing in which the figure of the man mounted on a barrel and waving a shirt to alert the passing ship appears. On the reverse is a study for a nude man, seen from behind, lying down and trying to stand up, in preparation for the figure on the far right of the painting in the Louvre, near the barrel with the man standing and waving his shirt. Three other studies for this figure are known, two, also showing her naked, in the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rouen (Bazin, op. cit., nos. 1979 and 1980), probably made before the sheet in the Delon collection, and another in the Musée Magnin in Dijon, which corresponds exactly to the position of the figure in the Louvre painting (Bazin, op. cit., no. 1981). The man is wearing pants rolled up to his knees. We would like to thank Philippe Grunchec for confirming the attribution of this drawing on the basis of a photograph. The ten or so compositional studies known today for the Raft of the Medusa make it possible to follow the development of Géricault's masterpiece step by step and the successive changes in the composition (see, in particular, Bazin, op. cit. nos. 1925, 1927, 1928, 1940, 1948, 1952, 1958, 1960, 1961, 1967 and 1968). The drawing in the Delon collection marks an important moment in the production of the Louvre painting, completed in 1819: here Géricault has, in comparison with the previous overall studies, tightened the framing to show only the raft itself in the foreground, thus emphasizing the dramatic aspect of the scene. By this