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A watercolor of a raft filled with distressed men in a stormy sea.

A somber monochrome watercolor of mayhem and dissent at sea. The depiction of a sinking raft, with one furled and one billowing sail, stretches from one side of the drawing to the other. Great, curved white crested waves break behind and in front of the raft, which is crowded with men in dire straights. Some are naked and some are dressed in tattered clothing. Some, in the foreground, have fallen into the water and cling to the raft by a rope. Others behind them look to the left, some in anger and some in suplication, two are brandishing curved swords. Their eyes are on a clothed man who stands gazing upwards, his left arm curved round the raft's thick mast and in his right hand he holds a broken sword, the other end of which has been plunged into the heart of a naked man who lies, head tipped back, sprawled in front of him. To the left, and behind the standing man, others are closely packed together and also in distress. The sky overhead is dark and stormy, but in the far distance it is white and clear.

Identification and Creation

Object Number
1943.824
People
Théodore Géricault, French (Rouen 1791 - 1824 Paris)
Title
The Mutiny on the Raft of the Medusa
Classification
Drawings
Work Type
drawing
Date
1818
Culture
French
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/297588

Physical Descriptions

Medium
Black chalk, black crayon, white chalk, brown and blue-green watercolor and white gouache on brown laid paper
Dimensions
40.5 × 51 cm (15 15/16 × 20 1/16 in.)
frame: 55 × 65.8 × 4.5 cm (21 5/8 × 25 7/8 × 1 3/4 in.)

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History
Ary Scheffer, Paris, sold [through his sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, March 15-16, 1859, no. 12]. Anatole-Auguste Hulot, Paris, sold [through his sale, Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, May 9-10, 1892, no. 202]. Baron Joseph Vitta, Paris, sold [through Martin Birnbaum]; to Grenville L. Winthrop, New York, 1935, bequest; to Fogg Art Museum, 1943

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line
Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Bequest of Grenville L. Winthrop
Accession Year
1943
Object Number
1943.824
Division
European and American Art
Contact
am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu
Permissions

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Publication History

  • Chantal Kreutzer, Arts plastiques: pratique artistique (Cours seconde), Centre National d'Enseignement à Distance (Rennes, n.d.), fig. 41, p. 89
  • Anonymous, "Chronique, documents, faits divers", Revue universelle des arts (Brussels, 1859), vol. 9, pg. 95
  • Philippe Burty, "Vente de la collection Ary Scheffer", Gazette des beaux-arts (April 1, 1859), vol. 2, no. 1, p. 48
  • Charles Blanc, École Française, Librairie Renouard (Paris, 1862-1863), vol. 3, "Théodore Gericault," pg. 12
  • Charles Clément, Géricault; étude biographique et critique avec le Catalogue raisonné de l'oeuvre du maitre, Didier et cie. (Paris, France, 1879), pp. 122-23, n. 2, 127 n. 1, 351 no. 110, pl. 15 facing pg. 120
  • Léon Rosenthal, Géricault, Librairie de l'art ancien et moderne (Paris, France, 1905), pp. 88-90
  • George Oprescu, Géricault, La Renaissance du Livre (Paris, France, 1927), p. 98
  • Marthe Kolb, Ary Scheffer et son temps, 1795-1858, Boivin (Paris, 1937), pg. 62
  • John Knowlton, "The Stylistic Origins of Géricault's 'Raft of the Medusa'", Marsyas (1942), vol. 2, pg. 135, pl. 48, fig. 22
  • Otto Benesch, "The Winthrop Collection: From Neo-Classic to Romanticism; David, Ingres, Géricault", Art News (January 1-14, 1944), vol. 42, no. 16, pp. 9-10, 20-21, 32, p. 21
  • Between the Empires: Géricault, Delacroix, Chassériau, exh. cat., Fogg Art Museum (Cambridge, MA, 1946), pg. 14
  • Siegfried Wichmann, "Rezensionen: Klaus Berger 'Géricault' ud sein Werk'", Kunstchronik, H. Carl (Nürnberg, April 1954), vol. 7, no. 4, pg. 109
  • Klaus Berger, Géricault and His Work, University of Kansas Press (Lawrence, KS, 1955), pp. 53-54, 79, no. 47, pl. 47
  • Denise Aimé-Azam, Mazeppa, Géricault et son temps, Plon (Paris, 1956), p. 175
  • F. H. Lem, "Le thème du nègre dans l'oeuvre de Géricault", L'arte (1962), vol. 61, pg. 26
  • N. V. Prokoviev, Géricault (Moscow, 1963), pg. 124, repro.
  • Lorenz Eitner, "Reversals of Direction in Géricault's Compositional Subjects", Stil und Überlieferung in der Kunst des Abendlandes (Berlin, 1967), vol. 3, pg. 132, n. 16
  • Denise Aimé-Azam, La Passion de Géricault, Fayard (Paris, France, 1970), pg. 189
  • Lorenz Eitner, "Dessins de Géricault d'après Rubens et la genèse du 'Radeau de la Méduse'", Revue de l'Art (1971), vol. 14, pg. 53, no. 10
  • Lorenz Eitner, Gericault's "Raft of the Medusa", Phaidon (London, England, 1972), pp. 23 (pl. 7), 154-55 (under no. 37), 169 (under no. 95)
  • René Huyghe, La relève de l'imaginaire: la peinture francaise au XIXe siecle: realisme, romantisme, Flammarion (Paris, France, 1976), pp. 160, 170 (fig. 187)
  • Henri Zerner, "Théodore Géricault: Artist of Man and Beast", Apollo (June 1978), vol. CVII, no. 196, pp. 480-486, pp. 481, 483, 486, fig. 7
  • Wolfgang Stolte, "Zur Imagination im Werk von Eugène Delacroix" (1978), Rheinischen Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität, pp. 264, 404, pl. 104 (I A2)
  • Jean Clay, Le romantisme, Réalités-Hachette (Paris, 1980), p. 84, repr.
  • Lorenz Eitner, Géricault: His Life and Work, Orbis Publishing Ltd. (London, England, 1983), pp. 165-66, 167, 168, fig. 155
  • Philippe Grunchec, Master Drawings by Géricault, exh. cat., International Exhibitions Foundation (Washington, DC, 1985), pg. 137, under no. 70, fig. 70b
  • Wiepke Loos, The Fodor Collection: Nineteenth-Century French Drawings and Watercolors from Amsterdams Historisch Museum, exh. cat., Picker Art Gallery, Colgate University (Hamilton, NY, 1985), pp. 122-23, under no. 45, fig. 24
  • Kristin A. Mortimer and William G. Klingelhofer, Harvard University Art Museums: A Guide to the Collections, Harvard University Art Museums and Abbeville Press (Cambridge and New York, 1986), no. 281, p. 240, repro.
  • Germain Bazin, Théodore Géricault: Etude critique, documents, et catalogue raisonné, Wildenstein Institute (Paris, France, 1987 -1997), vol. 6, no. 1928, repr. , repr. in color between pp. 14 and 15, also pp. 14-15
  • Patrick Ramade, De Poussin è Picasso: Dessins français du Musée des Beaux-Arts de Dijon, exh. cat., Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rennes (Rennes, 1988), pp. 78-79, under no. 51, fig. 1
  • Gary Tinterow, Géricault's Heroic Landscapes: The Times of Day, Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, vol. 48, no. 3, Winter 1990-1991, pg. 19
  • Michel Schneider, "Géricault: La chair du tableau", Connaissance des Arts, Société française de promotion artistique (October 1991), no. 476, pp. 54 (repro.), 55
  • Italo Rota and Jean-Thierry Bloch, Géricault, exh. cat., Société française de promotion artistique (Paris, 1991), pg. 379, under nos. 190, 191
  • Bernard Noël, Géricault (Paris, France, 1991), pp. 47, 52 repro.
  • Denise Aimé-Azam, Géricault: l'énigme du peintre de la Méduse, Perrin (Paris, 1991), pg. 205
  • Michel Schneider, Un Rêve de Pierre: Le Radeau de la Méduse, Gericault., Gallimard (Paris, France, 1991), repr. pp. 76-77, 135 (detail illustration), 178 (detail illustration)
  • Henri Zerner, La problématique de la narration chez Géricault, Künstlerischer Austausch/Artistic Exchange: Aketn des XXXVIII Internationalen Kongresses für Kunstgeschichte, Berlin, ed. Thomas W. Gaehtgens (Berlin, July 15-20, 1993), vol. 2, pg. 577, fig. 6
  • Linda Nochlin, "Géricault and the Absence of Women", Géricault, ed. Régis Michel (Paris, 1996), vol. 1, pp. 406, 468, fig. 203
  • Agnes Mongan, David to Corot: French Drawings in the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University Press (Cambridge, MA, 1996), pp. 172-174, no. 174, fig. 174
  • André Barret, Les Peintres du fantastique, Éditions de l'amateur (Paris, France, 1996), p. 174, repr. p. 172 [color]
  • Vincent Pomarède, "La Collection Winthrop: A la recherche de la beauté pure", L'Estampille/L'Objet d'art (April 2003), no. 379, pp. 34-45, repr. p. 42 (color)
  • Anne Bertrand, "Winthrop: le dessein d'une collection", L'Oeil (March 2003), no. 545, fig. 11 (color)
  • Stephan Wolohojian, ed., A Private Passion: 19th-Century Paintings and Drawings from the Grenville L. Winthrop Collection, Harvard University, exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Yale University Press (U.S.) (New York, 2003), cat. no. 38, repr. (color)
  • Christopher Riopelle, Harvard's Winthrop Collection: Nineteenth-Century Paintings and Drawings from the Grenville L. Winthrop Collection, exh. cat., National Gallery Company Limited (London, 2003), p. 34, cat. 21, ill.
  • Stephan Wolohojian, Ingres, Burne-Jones, Whistler, Renoir... La Collection Grenville L. Winthrop, exh. cat., Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon and Réunion des Musées Nationaux (Paris, France, 2003), no. 38, repr.
  • Stephan Wolohojian and Alvin L. Clark, Jr., Harvard Art Museum/ Handbook, ed. Stephan Wolohojian, Harvard Art Museum (Cambridge, 2008), p. 134, repr.
  • Louis-Antoine Prat, Le dessin français au XIXe siècle, Somogy Éditions d'Art (Paris, 2011), p. 143, repr. p. 142 as fig. 305
  • Bruno Chenique and Musée d'art Roger-Quilliot de Clermont-Ferrand, Géricault: Au Coeur de la Création Romantique. Etudes pour le radeau de la Méduse , exh. cat., Nicolas Chaudun (Paris, France, 2012), p. 164, repr. fig. 4
  • Ewa Lajer-Burcharth and Elizabeth M. Rudy, ed., Drawing: The Invention of a Modern Medium, exh. cat., Harvard Art Museums (Cambridge, 2017), pp. 216-217, 286, repr. p. 217 as fig. 3
  • Anne Lafont, L'expérience des formes: autour de l'exposition 'Drawing: the Invention of a Modern Medium', Journal18 (May 2017), [e-journal], http://www.journal18.org/1749, accessed May 5, 2017, repr.
  • Clea Simon, "An Artist of His Times, and Ahead of Them", The Harvard Gazette ([e-journal], September 13, 2018), https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2018/09/mutiny-is-young-angry-and-taking-on-the-social-issues-of-yesterday-and-today/, accessed September 14, 2018, repr.
  • "Géricault's Staying Power", Index Magazine ([e-journal], August 13, 2018), https://www.harvardartmuseums.org/article/gericault-s-staying-power, accessed August 15, 2018

Exhibition History

Related Works

Verification Level

This record has been reviewed by the curatorial staff but may be incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of European and American Art at am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu