Théodore Géricault

Executed by the artist for Adam and Zoë Elmore, during his London stay in 1821;

Adam and Zoë Elmore Collection,

Thence by descent to the present owners.

G. Bazin, Théodore Géricault, étude critique, documents et catalogue raisonné, Paris 1997, vol. VII, pp. 24, 118, no. 2264.

Calais, Musée des beaux-arts, L’Aquarelle romantique, 1961, no. 62.

Géricault was an artist driven by a constant desire to research, perpetually seeking new approaches. His time in England, although brief, was an opportunity for this great experimenter not only to discover a new school of painting, but also to develop new working methods. 

An Arabian horse is probably one of the most intriguing and accomplished results of his many experiments and in particular his growing interest in lithography, a new process invented by Aloÿs Senefelder in 1796, which would become extremely popular throughout the nineteenth century.

Géricault tried it out as early as 1817, but it was mainly once he was in England that he tackled the new process with energy and rapidly mastered it. He wrote to his friend Alfred De Dreux-Dorcy, on 12 February 1821: ‘I am working hard at lithography. I have devoted myself to this genre for some time: being new to London, it is unimaginably fashionable’. On 1 March 1821, while he was still in London and staying with the Elmores, he published a plate with the title ‘AN ARABIAN HORSE’, printed by Charles Hullmandel and published by Rodwell and Martin (fig. 1).

It was on an impression from this plate, perhaps a trial proof, cut shorter than the final version, that Géricault felt the need to return to the motif of this Arabian horse, its rider and the surrounding landscape, with a comprehensive reprise in gouache and watercolor.

The highlights of gouache and watercolor, applied with unparalleled virtuosity, covering the whole surface of the paper, as well as the modifications the artist made to the composition, reflect a desire for complete renewal, an urge to recreate a different and consequently unique work.

The gouache naturally has a stronger presence where the artist has more profoundly modified the composition, notably in the figure of the Mamluk, whose position, bearing and face he completely changed. While in the underlying lithograph, Géricault gave the man a turban and a calmer, more stable pose, turning to face the head of his mount, now, through the application of gouache and watercolor, he gives him a more vigorous and dynamic bearing. This in turns creates a new originality, giving the image the status of a work in its own right, as evidenced by the pentimenti that can be seen around the horse’s hind legs.

An Arabian horse is not the only example of a lithograph created by Géricault and retouched by him with watercolor after printing. Other examples are known, including three in the collections of the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris. The plates for The Battle of a Chacabuco, 12 February 1817 and for The Battle of Maïpu, 5 March 1818 were similarly revisited by the artist himself, as was the plate of L’artillerie à cheval de la Garde impériale changeant de position [The Horse Artillery of the Imperial Guard changing position], showing the extent to which the artist continued to pursue his research, even after the final version had been printed.¹

This was not the first time that Géricault made modifications to the initial composition of An Arabian horse. A tracing of the drawing which was used as a model for the lithograph, unfortunately lost but once in the collection of His de la Salle and described by Clément in 1879, proves that Géricault had initially depicted the man with different headgear (closer to the cap in the present work?) and that in the background he had shown two horsemen on galloping horses. Another preparatory study by the artist also reflects this first composition.²

The subject seems to have obsessed Géricault, who kept returning to the motif and reworking it, as demonstrated by the work in the Elmore collection, which appears in the end to be the most fully resolved of Géricault’s explorations of the subject.

1.  Paris, EnsBA; Inv. Est. 437, 440, 434, respectively

2. Bazin, op. cit., n° 2266

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