Jean Louis Andre Theodore Gericault

'Lions Observing a Caravan', 19th Century North African Orientalist Gericault

Circa 1820

Théodore Géricault was born in Rouen in 1791 into a wealthy family from the Manche region. His father, a magistrate and wealthy landowner, ran a tobacco factory. The family moved to Paris around 1796, and in 1810 Théodore Géricault entered Carle Vernet's studio, where he met his son Horace. He then studied with Pierre-Narcisse Guérin before enrolling on February 5, 1811 at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, where he pursued a classical training based on copying the masters at the Louvre Museum. Géricault was expelled from the École des Beaux-Arts in 1812 for his misconduct; he then rented a back store on rue de la Michodière, where he painted one of his first masterpieces, a portrait of an officer of the imperial guard (the Lieutenant Dieudonné) charging while on horseback. This painting was exhibited at the 1812 Salon and won him the gold medal at the age of 21! Géricault became a sought-after painter, specializing in military subjects. Géricault falled in love with his aunt Alexandrine Caruel de Saint-Martin (the wife of his mother's brother). Aged 28 years younger than her husband, she was only 6 years older than him. From this affair, which lasted for many years, a son Georges-Hippolyte was born in 1818. After a short engagement in King Louis XVIII's Company of Grey Musketeers, Géricault, disappointed at not winning the Prix de Rome, spent two years in Italy. On his return in 1817, he embarked on the creation of his masterpiece, The Raft of the Medusa, which was exhibited in the Louvre in 1819 and was negatively received by the critics. The presentation of the Raft in London in 1820 brought Géricault to the English capital, first for a two-month period between April and June 1820, then again in 1821 after a return to the continent and a stay in Brussels. The painting was triumphantly received in England (partly for the opposite political reasons to those that had led to its unsuccessful reception in France), and 50,000 visitors flocked to Bullock's gallery where it was exhibited during six months. In November 1821, Géricault returned home very weakened by a venereal disease contracted probably during his stay in England. He fell off his horse several times, and in August 1823 broke his back in a fall. He died at the age of thirty-two on January 24, 1824, after a long agony.