Turkish Cavalier in Combat
Medium
Brush and brown wash, heightened with white gouache over black chalk, with blue wash on brown laid paper
Dimensions
28 × 22 cm (11 1/16 × 8 11/16 in.)
Classification
wash
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
129844
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
Soldiers and horses were among Géricault’s favorite subjects, symbolizing energy, emotion, and individuality. In its laser-like focus on one cavalry soldier and his charging horse in the heat of battle, this drawing’s romantic intensity departs radically from the Classical restraint of many works of the period. Géricault exoticized his horseman, giving him African features and clothing him in the garb of an Ottoman mamluk, a caste of Muslim slave soldiers who fought for their indepe-dence in Eg...
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 ...