Théodore Gericault

M. Walferdin, Paris;

His sale, Paris, Hôtel Drouot, 12-16 April 1880, lot 128;

Jean Dolfuss, Paris;

His sale, Paris, Hôtel Drouot, 2 March 1912, lot 41;

Where acquired by Madame Jules Ferry;

Her sale, Paris, Hôtel Drouot, 11-12 February 1921 (as an English school);

Pierre Dubaut, Paris, in 1937;

With Mario Tazzoli, London;

Pierre Bergé and Yves Saint-Laurent;

Sale Pierre Bergé: From One Home to Another, Sotheby's, Paris, 30 October 2018, lot 11;

Where acquired by the present owner.

Paris, Galerie Charpentier, Géricault, 1924, no.240;

Paris, Maison de Victor Hugo, La jeunesse des Romantiques, 1927, no.1262;

Paris, Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, Gericault peintre et dessinateur, May 1937, no.53;

Paris, Galerie Charpentier, L'Enfance, 1949, no.53;

London, Marlborough Gallery, Gericault, October-November 1952, no.19;

Winterthur, Kunstmuseum, Gericault, 1953, no.5;

Paris, Galerie Claude Aubry, Gericault dans les collections privées françaises, November-December 1964, no.30;

Los Angeles, Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit; Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, Gericault, October-December 1971, no.21.

C. Clément, 'Gericault, étude biographique et critique', in Gazette des Beaux-Arts, September 1867, no.111;

C. Clément, Gericault : étude biographique et critique avec le catalogue raisonné de l'œuvre du maître, Paris 1868 and 1879, no.117;

L. Eitner, Gericault. An Album of drawings in the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago 1960, pp. 34, 39;

F. H. Lem, 'Gericault portraitiste', in L'Arte, June-July 1963, pp. 77-78, no.4;

R. Rey, 'Gericault ou l'Archange aboli', in Les Nouvelles littéraires, 12 November 1964, p. 8, illustrated;

L. Johnson, 'Gericault in Los Angeles', in Burlington Magazine, December 1971, p. 773;

L. Eitner, Supplément au catalogue raisonné de l'œuvre de Gericault par C. Clément, Paris 1973, p. 454, no.117;

P. Grunchec, Tout l'Œuvre peint de Gericault, Paris 1978, pp. 100-101, no.96, illustrated;

L. Eitner, Gericault, his life and work, London 1983, p. 94, fig. 80, illustrated;

G. Bazin, Théodore Gericault, vol. V, Paris 1992, pp. 83, 241-242, no.1732, illustrated.

The head of a young boy, about ten to twelve years old, is seen at very close range. A cold light illuminates his forehead, his very pure Greek profile and his white collar. His curly, unrealistically golden hair is as rigid as a helmet. The rapidly brushed background features a dark sky with dusky colours, against which the profile stands out, apparently frozen in its sculptural immobility.

Far from the traditional portrait that seeks to capture as closely as possible the model’s physical features, temperament and social milieu, this painting, with its extreme sobriety and lack of extraneous details, pictures a face that is ‘emotionally inert’, in the words of Lorenz Eitner, captured in its ‘corporality’ rather than its humanity or individuality (Eitner, 1983, op. cit. p. 94). Bathed in an unreal and vaguely Romantic light, the young boy has an intense and disturbing presence.

Gericault painted several children with the same surprising ‘material presence’. The portrait of Alfred de Dreux at the age of five has parallels with our painting: as well as the same wide white collar, he also has a rather unrealistic mass of curly hair. Yet his face is animated by a certain sweetness, the result of his very tender age. Other portraits are more disconcerting, such as that of Louise Vernet, c. 1818 (Musée du Louvre, Paris, inv. RF 1938 92), and Olivier Bro, also c. 1818 (Harvard Art Museum, inv. 2021.192). Both of these have a sculptural physicality and an opaque gaze and are accompanied by a disconcerting and disproportionately sized animal.

Because of the colours used, Philippe Grunchec dates our portrait to about 1815–1816, while Lorenz Eitner places it closer to 1817–1819, just before the Raft of the Medusa was exhibited at the 1819 Salon. In any event, it is earlier than those painted slightly before or during his trip to England (1821–1822), when his models displayed more individuality and realism, and the background was more detailed.