Théodore GéricaultFrankrig, 1791–1824Olivier Bro
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Harvard Art Museums
Cambridge, USA
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About the painting
This portrait depicts the son of Colonel Louis Bro, a cavalry officer knighted by Napoleon. Géricault painted the colonel’s five-year-old son Olivier in the visual language of service to the empire, his somber expression suggesting adult concerns rather than playfulness. Olivier’s costume recalls portraits of soldiers from the Napoleonic Wars, and the boy’s dog stands in for a cavalry horse. The sword belonged to Colonel Bro, who purportedly brandished it at the Battle of Waterloo. At this point, however, the empire was over, Napoleon was in exile, and Bonapartists such as Bro had been beaten down and were out of power. They were also often spied on by the royalist government and unable to work. Here, Géricault uses a child to represent the seriousness and danger of war, and its larger effect on French society. He gave the painting to Olivier’s family as a token of friendship.
Harvard Art Museums
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- 2021.192
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- Harvard Art Museums: the museum's own open data · hentet for 7 dage siden
- Billede: Harvard Art Museums — © President and Fellows of Harvard College
Imens i livet hos Théodore Géricault
Hele livet1816–1817
Naples and Rome: the shock of Michelangelo
Géricault visited Naples, drawing the landscapes and people, but spent most of his time in Rome. The frescoes of the Sistine Chapel shook him: Michelangelo's monumentality of form inspired his pen drawings, such as “Man Felling a Bull”, among the most interesting made in Rome.
autumn 1817
The book on the wreck of the Méduse reaches Géricault
In the autumn of 1817 the book “The Wreck of the Frigate Medusa” appeared, in which the eyewitnesses, the geographer-engineer Alexandre Corréard and the physician Henri Savigny, described the thirteen-day drift of the raft after the ship ran aground off the coast of Mauritania. The book reached Géricault, who saw in it the subject for the large painting he had long dreamed of.
1817–1818
Investigating the disaster: survivors, a model raft, morgues
Géricault re-created the event by studying the available materials and meeting witnesses: he got to know Corréard and Savigny, a carpenter from the Méduse made a scale model of the raft for him, and the artist modelled wax figures himself. He visited hospital morgues, drawing dead heads, emaciated bodies and severed limbs, and the preparation ended with a trip to Le Havre, where he painted studies of sea and sky.
1819
“The Raft of the Medusa” sparks a political controversy at the Salon
When first exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1819, “The Raft of the Medusa” ignited political controversy: it indicted a corrupt establishment, in which the captain had left the crew and passengers to die, but also dramatized the eternal struggle of man against nature.
12 June – 30 December 1820
London: 50,000 visitors and 20,000 francs
The entrepreneur Bullock exhibited “The Raft of the Medusa” in London from 12 June to 30 December 1820; about 50,000 people saw it, critics called it a masterpiece, and its author was compared to Michelangelo and Caravaggio. Géricault was entitled to a third of the ticket receipts and received 20,000 francs.
1821–1824
Illness and falls from horses after his return from England
After returning to Paris from England Géricault was often ill, and his condition was made worse by several falls during horseback rides.
