A Paraleytic Woman, plate 9 from Various Subjects Drawn from Life and on Stone (The English Suite)
April 1821
Medium
Lithograph in black on ivory wove paper
Dimensions
Image: 22.6 × 31.7 cm (8 15/16 × 12 1/2 in.); Sheet: 37.6 × 49.6 cm (14 13/16 × 19 9/16 in.)
Classification
lithograph
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
121979
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
Although he was renowned as a painter, Théodore Géricault feared that he could never rival the work of his predecessors. Thus, he embraced the invention of lithography in the late 18th century as an opportunity to become the master of a new medium. Here Géricault used the lines of the building to frame the young girl’s despair at the plight of the older woman.
About the Artist
Jean Louis André Théodore Géricault · 1791–1824
Jean-Louis André Théodore Géricault (1791–1824) was born into a prosperous bourgeois family in Rouen, France, the son of a lawyer who managed the family tobacco business. After moving to Paris around 1797, his artistic talent emerged early, nurtured in a circle that included his maternal uncle Jean-Baptiste Caruel and art dealer Jean-Louis Laneuville. Géricault began formal training in 1808 under ...