Sketches of Heads
Medium
Graphite, on tan wove paper, perimeter mounted on ivory laid paper
Dimensions
17.3 × 23 cm (6 13/16 × 9 1/16 in.)
Classification
graphite
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
113337
Art Historical Context
In the Prints and Drawings department of the Institute of Chicago, visitors *Sketches of Heads* (1813/14), a intimate sheet by French Romantic artist Théodore Géricault At just 17.3 × 23 cm, this graphite drawing on tan wove—perimeter-mounted on ivory laid paper—reveals the young artist's (then in his early twenties) probing gaze into human expression. Géricault, born in 1791, was honing his craft amid the turbulent Napoleonic era, blending classical influences from Michelangelo and Rubens with emerging Romantic intensity. These quick, gestural studies of multiple heads exemplify Géricault's ...
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 ...