Caricature of a Man Wearing a Broad-Brimmed Hat
Medium
Graphite on cream laid paper, perimeter mounted on cream wove paper
Dimensions
22.6 × 28.7 cm (8 15/16 × 11 5/16 in.)
Classification
drawings (visual works)
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
113392
Art Historical Context
In the lively world of early 19th-century French art, Théodore Géricault'sCaricature of a Wearing a Broad-Brim Hat* (1818/19) captures the artist's playful side amid his intense Romantic pursuits. Géricault, a leading figure in Romanticism known for dramatic masterpieces like *The Raft of the Medusa* (1819), often sketched exaggerated human forms to explore emotion and character. This drawing, housed in the Art Institute of Chicago's Prints and Drawings department, depicts a whimsical figure with an oversized hat, highlighting Géricault's fascination with physiognomy—the idea that facial featu...
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 ...