Head of a Guillotined Man

Public Domain

1818/19

Jean Louis André Théodore Géricault
French, 1791-1824

Théodore Géricault painted this macabre image directly from life. The artist is known to have acquired corpses from his local morgue to study anatomy and the effects of decomposition. Surrounding himself with the stench of decay, he produced several paintings of decapitated heads and severed limbs. By depicting this graying and lifeless head upon on a blood-stained cloth laid over a wooden table, Géricault also referenced—perhaps ironically—the long history of still-life painting in Western art. The head probably belonged to a convicted criminal. At that time in France, executions were carried out by the guillotine, a bladed device that sliced through the necks of its victims.

Status: On View, Gallery 220
Department: Painting and Sculpture of Europe

Artist: Jean Louis André Théodore Géricault
Title: Head of a Guillotined Man
Place: France (Artist's nationality:)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: 1818
Medium: Oil on panel
Dimensions: 41 × 38 cm (16 1/8 × 14 15/16 in.)
Credit Line: Through prior gift of William Wood Prince; L. L. and A. S. Coburn Endowment; Charles H. and Mary F. S. Worcester Collection
Reference Number: 1992.628
IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.: https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/119264/manifest.json

Lorenz Eitner, “Géricault at Winterthur,” Burlington Magazine 96 (1954), p. 258.
Lorenz Eitner, “Géricault at Winterthur,” Burlington Magazine XCVI (1954): 258.
Lorenz Eitner, “The Sale of Géricault’s Studio in 1824,” Gazette des Beaux-Arts 6th period, 53 (1959), pp. 119, 125, n. 20.
Antonio del Guercio, Géricault, Milan, 1963, p. 148, pl. 65.
Jacques Fischer, “Géricault in French private collections,” Connoisseur 58, no. 635 (1965), p. 52.
Lorenz Eitner, Géricault’s The Raft of Medusa, London, 1972, pp. 167-168, no. 89, pl. 88.
Phillippe Grunchec, Tout l’oeuvre peint de Géricault. Paris, 1978, p. 114, no. 175, pl. 38.
Lorenz Eitner, Géricault: His Life and Work. London, 1983, p. 181, fig. 170, 183, 345, n. 133, rev. ed. Milan, 1991, pp. 113–114, no. 175, ill.
Michel Schneider,Un rêve de pierre: le Radeau de la Médusa, Géricault. Paris, 1991, p. 105, no. 105, ill.
Nina Athanassoglou-Kallmyer, “Géricault’s Severed Heads and Limbs: The Politics and Aesthetics of the Scaffold” Art Bulletin 74 (1992), no. 4, pp. 599–604, 609–18, fig. 5.
Luc de Nanteuil, “Géricault. L’Homme et l’oeuvre,” Conaissances des Arts (1991), p. 44, fig. 49.
Germain Bazin, Théodore Géricault. Etude critique, documents et catalogue raisonné, vol. 6, Paris, 1994, pp. 38-39, no. 2060, ill.
Linda Nochlin, The Body in Pieces. The Fragment as a Metaphor for Modernity, London and New York, 1994, pp. 19–22, fig. 15.
Lorenz Eitner, review of Germain Bazin, Théodore Géricault: Étude critique, documents, et catalogue raisonné in Burlington Magazine 140 (1998), pp. 761–63, n. 6.

Paris, Hôtel Jean Charpentier, Exposition d’Oeuvres de Géricault, (Centenary), 1924, cat. 132.
Paris, Petit Palais, Gros. Ses Amis et ses élèves, 1936, cat. 842.
Paris, Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, Exposition Géricault: Peintre et dessinateur, 1791-1824, 1937, cat. 43.
London, Marlborough Fine Art, Ltd., Théodore Géricault 1791–1824, 1952, cat. 24.
Winterthur, Kunstmuseum, Théodore Géricault, 1953, cat. 81.
Paris, Galerie Claude Aubry, Géricault dans les collections privées françaises, 1964, cat. 25.
Los Angeles, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Géricault, 1971-72, cat. 90.
New York, Salander-O’Reilly Galleries, Inc., New York, Théodore Géricault: An Exhibition of Paintings, Drawings, Watercolors, Prints and Sculpture, 1987, Addendum to catalogue between cat. 26 and 27.
San Francisco, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Géricault 1791–1824, 1989, cat. 43.
Paris, Grand Palais, Géricault, 1991-1992, cat. 180.
Clermont-Ferrand, France, Musée d’art Roger-Quillot, Géricault. Original studies for the Raft of the Medusa: the crystallization of a Romantic Masterpiece, May 30-September 3, 2012.

The artist’s estate sale, Hôtel de Buillion, November 2-3, 1824 [possibly no. 17, “Dix études de diverses parties du corps humain” or handwritten addition to a copy of the catalogue in the British Museum, “trois têtes de guillotinés peints peu de temps après…270 (frs.)”; see Eitner 1959]. The painter Auguste Boulard (died 1897), Paris; his estate sale, Pairs, Hôtel Drouot, April 9–10, 1900, no. 130. Édouard Napoléon César Edmond Mortier, duc de Trévise (died 1946), Paris, from at least 1924 until at least 1937 [lent by to Paris 1924 and Paris 1937]. Pierre Dubaut (died 1968) by 1952 [lent by him to London, 1952 and later exhibitions; Dubaut may have acquired it directly from the Duc de Trévise, since they were co-authors of Paris 1924 and Dubaut was the author of Paris 1937]; by descent to his niece Jacqueline Dubaut- Bellonte, Paris; purchased by the Art Institute through her gallery, Galerie du Fleuve, 1992.

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Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

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