Color lithograph printed in black and tan on cream wove paper, 1818. 445x332 mm; with thread margins outside the border line. Likely the first state (of 2), before the printed title lower center. A very good impression of this extremely scarce, early lithograph.
According to Delteil, extremely scarce in both the first and second states. He cites 11 impressions in the first state and 5 impressions in the second state; we locate fewer than 10 other impressions in both states at auction in the past 30 years.
Gericault (1791-1824) was a French painter and lithographer, one of the pioneers of the Romantic movement. He exhibited his first major work, The Charging Chasseur, now in the Louvre, Paris, at the Paris Salon of 1812. This was followed by his most ambitious work, The Raft of the Medusa, 1818-19, a monumental oil on canvas now also in the Louvre, Paris, which is a hallmark of the Romantic movement.
The current lithograph, created only two decades following the discovery of the technique for artistic purposes, and printed from two stones for added color to achieve the appearance of a drawing, represents the winter 1812 retreat of battered French soldiers following their defeat in the Napoleonic invasion of Russia. Delteil 13.
