Six Sketches of a Chasseur Beside His Horse
Medium
Graphite on tan wove paper, perimeter mounted on ivory laid paper
Dimensions
17 × 23 cm (6 3/4 × 9 1/16 in.)
Classification
drawings (visual works)
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
113380
Art Historical Context
In the Prints and Drawings department of the Institute of Chicago sits a captivating set of *Six Sketches of a Chasseur His Horse* by Théodore Géricault, created around 1813–14. This intimate graphite drawing on tan wove paper, just 17 × 23 cm, captures a light cavalry soldier—known as a *chasseur*—in poses alongside his steed. Géricault, a pioneering French Romantic artist famous for dramatic works like *The Raft of the Medusa*, reveals his early fascination with equine anatomy and military valor through fluid, preparatory sketches. Dating to the height of the Napoleonic Wars, these studies ...
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 ...