Mameluk of the Imperial Guard Defending a Wounded Trumpeter against a Cossack

Théodore Géricault, one of the most distinguished painters of French Romanticism, engaged in lithography from 1817. Like Delacroix later on, Géricault also enhanced his technical knowledge in London, in the workshop operated by Charles Joseph Hullmandel. In 1821 he published a series of twelve lithographs there, in which he conveyed his impressions of London street life and his lifelong penchant for equestry. For Géricault the horse was the object of his passionate interest and romantic sentiment both in his art and life. In the end, the aftermaths of his riding accidents took a toll on his life. Many of Géricault’s lithographs, such as this scene showing a clash between a French Mameluk and a Russian Cossack, echo the Napoleonic Wars whose heroic pathos had become one of the sources of Romanticism. The first sketch of this motif dates from 1812-1816, when Géricault produced his most significant equestrian paintings, related to which are also the spontaneity and generous scale of the drawing and the monumental composition of this lithograph.