Lithographs and Prints

A pair of boxers waits for the next blow; three workhorses disappear beneath a London arch; wounded soldiers help one another through snow. Géricault’s lithographs bring these different kinds of bodily effort into unusually close contact. Their subjects range from public entertainment to the aftermath of war, but their force often depends on the same things: a braced leg, a bent back, an animal carrying more than its own weight. He began working in lithography in 1817, and the medium became an important part of his short career. ^[1]

These prints deserve attention as works conceived for paper, alongside his paintings and drawings. The change of medium was also a change of encounter. A viewer could examine the small gestures of a street scene at arm’s length, while a composition could circulate in several impressions. The apparent immediacy of the drawing mattered, but so did the practical work of printers, publishers and, on some projects, fellow artists. Understanding those relationships helps explain both the expressive power of the images and the differences between the objects that preserve them.

Drawing for the press

Lithography begins with a drawing on a prepared surface rather than with lines cut into a metal plate. Chantilly’s account describes the traditional limestone process: a smoothed stone receives greasy crayon or ink, and during printing its dampened, undrawn areas repel the greasy printing ink. Paper is pressed against the inked surface to take an impression. The image can therefore retain qualities associated with drawing, including changes from a fine line to a broad, grainy shadow. The process offered a comparatively quick and economical means of producing multiple images. ^[2]

In Géricault’s hands that range is central to the experience of looking. In Boxers, the darkest passages across one fighter’s torso consist of closely worked marks; farther away, the sky is swept with much looser strokes. The paper does different jobs in different places. It provides the light on a shoulder, the space around a clenched fist and the pale interval against which a head becomes legible. The print’s vigour depends on these transitions as much as on its subject. The marks do not all have to describe something with equal precision.

The surviving works also anchor the beginnings of his practice. The National Museum of Western Art’s 2024 checklist dates Roman Butchers to 1817, placing an Italian subject at the opening of his lithographic career. It is useful evidence against treating his printmaking as an English invention that began only after the journey to London. England expanded an existing practice, giving it new subjects, collaborators and publishing arrangements. ^[5]

The French workshops mattered from the outset. Charles Clément’s 1866 catalogue records the names of Motte, Delpech and Engelmann across the early prints. These inscriptions help recover a material history that disappears when an image is reproduced without its margins. They identify the establishments through which drawings became sheets for circulation. Clément admired lithography because it made an artist’s own drawing available in multiple examples; his account preserves the testimony of collectors, though it was written decades after Géricault’s death. His judgements and recollected anecdotes should be read with that distance in mind. ^[3]

War seen through bodies

Géricault’s military prints do not offer a single attitude towards the Napoleonic past. Some concentrate on courageous action; others make physical dependence their subject. The change is particularly clear in Return from Russia, made around 1818 in response to the retreat of 1812. The date of the campaign and the date of the lithograph belong to different moments. The Cleveland Museum of Art reads the work through the misery of wounded soldiers and exhausted animals, rather than the celebration of conquest. ^[6]

The figures form a compact group, but nothing about their arrangement feels effortless. A mounted man rests a hand on the shoulder of the soldier walking beside him. The horse lowers its head, while the small dog follows near the walker’s feet. In the distance, another soldier carries a companion. These gestures establish a chain of support: one body sustains another, and the animals share the burden. The reduced setting makes that chain more conspicuous. The eye finds little relief in the landscape beyond the slow movement of the group.

The Cleveland impression also shows how technique can shape the scene’s atmosphere. Its record identifies printing from two stones, one supplying the black design and the other broad ochre tones, with watercolour added by hand; the museum describes white watercolour used for snow. Its catalogue designation is Delteil 13, state III of VI. These details concern this documented impression and printing arrangement. They do not establish that every sheet called Return from Russia has the same added colour or the same physical appearance. ^[6]

The problems of moving injured men recur in Wagon Filled with Wounded Soldiers. Clément describes a wounded man who braces himself between a crutch and the wagon while seeking a place. Even the horses complicate the attempt to move: one bites another, and the driver turns towards the disturbance. The Bibliothèque nationale de France records an 1818 impression in the second state, carrying Géricault’s and Motte’s names. Such details bring military history down to the difficulty of finding room, keeping an animal steady and getting a vulnerable body onto transport. ^{[3] [7]}

In Artillery Caisson, resistance has a different shape. The Rijksmuseum describes a soldier standing on an open ammunition wagon beside a dead horse, one hand clenched and the other holding a burning fuse. The image compresses defiance and impending destruction into one isolated figure. It need not be assigned to an identified battle incident to be understood. The dead animal and disabled transport make the soldier’s gesture precarious: his determination exists in a situation where the practical means of escape or advance have already broken down. ^[8]

The Mameluke defending a wounded trumpeter supplies a further variation. The 1818 lithograph places protective action at its centre: the defender supports the wounded man while facing the approaching opponent. The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston identifies its impression as a lithograph of that year. Chantilly interprets the subject in relation to the treatment of the Imperial Guard’s Mamelukes under the Restoration. That political reading gives the protective gesture a wider resonance, but it remains a museum interpretation rather than a surviving statement by Géricault about his intention. ^{[9] [2]}

Military vulnerability could also become a question of recognition at home. In The Swiss Guard at the Louvre, a veteran with an amputated leg reveals his Legion of Honour to a sentry who has blocked his passage. Chantilly connects the print to a newspaper anecdote and to the mistreatment of former Imperial soldiers during the Restoration. The contrast is between the authority of the uniformed guard and the claim embodied by the veteran’s damaged body and decoration. Because historical accounts disagree over the newspaper episode’s precise date, the secure point is the print’s 1819 date and its use of this reported confrontation. ^[10]

The uncertain balance of Boxers

Boxers, dated 1818, turns away from military costume while keeping the body under pressure. Two men confront one another with raised fists. Their feet spread across the foreground, and their upper bodies lean back slightly, as though the interval before contact has stretched. Around them, seated and standing spectators watch, talk or rest. A metal jug at the lower right sets an ordinary object beside the powerful legs. The scene belongs to a social gathering as well as to an athletic contest. ^[1]

The relation between the Black and white fighters has prompted different emphases. The Met stresses their similar poses, the use of monochrome to mark racial difference and the charged opposition between them. Chantilly goes further, interpreting the Black boxer’s equal standing as a republican and antislavery declaration. Those readings illuminate the image’s political possibilities, but neither requires us to reduce it to a simple visual slogan. What is immediately visible is a structure of comparison: matched fists, opposing profiles and strongly modelled bodies hold the centre together. ^{[1] [2]}

The spectators keep that comparison from becoming entirely abstract. They occupy a lower, less orderly band around the fighters, and their varied directions of attention complicate the apparent symmetry. Looking across the whole sheet means shifting between individual actions and the formal balance of the central pair. Lithography is especially effective here because its different densities of mark can distinguish the fighters without isolating them from the surrounding crowd. The result is both a study of rivalry and an image of people watching other people test their strength.

A wagon that carries the title

The covered wagon seen from behind has a practical role within the English suite: it is the title-page design, Un fourgon attelé (A Harnessed Wagon), dated 1821. The British Museum catalogues its impression as Delteil 29, state I. This identification makes the wagon an introduction to the collection, rather than simply another example of horse-drawn transport. ^[11]

The great pale surface of the covering almost fills the image. Its curved top and dark, uneven sides make a conspicuous frame for the lettering. Below it, the ladder-like rear structure, wheel and suspended equipment break into smaller shapes. A figure stands at the right, turned towards the wagon, while the horses are largely concealed beyond it. Looking at the sheet means looking first at the words and then discovering the transport that supports them. The rear view gives the ordinary vehicle an unusually commanding presence.

Clément’s 1866 catalogue transcribes the inscription as Various Subjects Drawn from Life and on Stone. The wording joins subject matter to method: life provides the subjects, while stone names the surface through which the drawings become prints. He lists twelve plates and this additional title sheet. The design therefore introduces a varied collection without pretending that its scenes form a continuous narrative. ^[3]

The figure’s sign adds another act of reading. It names the Shipwreck of the Meduse, while Clément describes its bearer reading the lettering on the wagon. The two titles occupy the same modest scene: one names the suite, the other recalls the painting. That juxtaposition lets the title page connect Géricault’s different works without reproducing the raft itself. Its ingenuity lies in making information part of the pictured encounter. ^[3]

The British Museum also draws attention to the physical sheet. Its impression occupies the first half of a double-sized piece of paper folded in two, suggesting that the image formed the front of a wrapper. This remains the museum’s qualified identification, but it gives a concrete reason to consider the title page as something a reader might handle before encountering the individual prints. ^[11]

Catalogue numbers require care here. Clément places the title under no. 26 in his 1866 catalogue and describes The Coalwaggon separately under no. 37. His numbering belongs to that publication; the British Museum’s Delteil 29 belongs to a different catalogue. The covered vehicle carrying the title should retain its own identity within the suite. ^{[3] [11]}

The English suite: twelve subjects and a title sheet

Charles Hullmandel’s London establishment printed the suite, and Rodwell & Martin published it. The Met’s record for Entrance to the Adelphi Wharf preserves those separate credits alongside Géricault’s name. The distinctions matter: the artist’s design, the specialist work of making impressions and the business of issuing them were connected activities. The lower margin of the print carries that history as well as its title. Cut away the inscriptions in a modern reproduction and part of the object’s evidence disappears. ^[4]

The suite moves between different forms of activity and dependence. Clément’s list includes a blind piper, an elderly man outside a baker’s shop, a woman in a wheeled chair, soldiers, farriers, working horses and horses on the road. Chantilly interprets the London street subjects through the social conditions of industrialisation. The variety supports that reading, while also showing why no single label covers the whole group. Some sheets invite sympathy, some close observation of skilled work, and others pleasure in the differing movements and temperaments of animals. ^{[3] [2]}

In Entrance to the Adelphi Wharf, the architecture makes the labour palpable. The broad brick arch presses down over three harnessed horses. Their hindquarters face the viewer, and the light-coloured central animal becomes a strong vertical presence against the dark opening. A man at the left carries a long implement over his shoulder, while another figure is partly absorbed into the shadow among the animals. The arch gives the composition a firm boundary; the horses’ staggered legs and overlapping harnesses make movement within it slower and more complicated.

This is a different way of giving a horse importance from the raised forelegs and conspicuous rider of an equestrian portrait. The wharf horses are monumental because of their mass, their proximity and the space they occupy together. The work surrounding them is visible through equipment and posture. The scene does not need a spectacular accident or a heroic protagonist. It makes the ordinary passage of animals through a confined working environment worth sustained attention.

Horses Going to a Fair opens that space again. The Met dates it to 1821 and credits the same printer and publisher. In the image, the animals overlap as they follow a rising road. A piebald horse turns its head towards the viewer, interrupting the procession’s forward direction, while the mounted animal higher on the slope gives the group a different rhythm. Differences of coat, angle and gait prevent the horses from becoming interchangeable examples of a type. The title describes their destination without identifying a particular documented fair. ^[12]

The farrier subjects add another kind of comparison. The English suite includes French, Flemish and English farriers, so its geography extends beyond a succession of London views. The National Museum of Western Art’s checklist explicitly places A French Farrier, dated 1821, within Various Subjects. Clément’s catalogue distinguishes the poses and arrangements of the three farrier scenes. This is a world in which human skill and animal behaviour meet through practical tasks: holding a leg, fitting a shoe, keeping another horse from interfering. ^{[5] [3]}

Portable experiments and shared authorship

The English years also brought experiments with prepared lithographic carton, sometimes called stone paper. A drawing made on such a support must be distinguished from the paper impression taken from it. Christie’s catalogue of The Sleeping Fish Seller describes a surviving drawing in lithographic ink on prepared stone paper, measuring 25.6 × 34.8 cm, which served as a printing matrix for the composition catalogued as Delteil 24. That object is neither a painting nor simply another sheet of the finished print. ^[13]

The attraction was portability. In the argument by Lorenz Eitner reported in the auction essay, chemically prepared carton offered a lighter, less expensive alternative to carrying stones. Fragility limited the number of impressions it could yield. The catalogue also reports Eitner’s case for Géricault’s sole authorship, based on the drawing’s handling and the chronology of the second London visit, when Charlet was absent. This is a scholarly argument transmitted through an auction catalogue; Eitner’s letter itself is not the source reproduced here. ^[13]

The National Gallery of Art’s record for its printed Dozing Fishmonger, however, names both Géricault and Nicolas-Toussaint Charlet. It identifies the Rosenwald Collection impression as a lithograph, accession 1951.10.448, and records a Whatman/Turkey Mill watermark dated 1821. The museum dates the work to 1820; that catalogue date and the paper’s watermark should not be conflated into an exact date of printing. The joint catalogue credit and the argument reported by Christie’s should remain visible together. A composition’s inclusion in Géricault’s print oeuvre does not settle every question about the participation of another artist. ^[14]

The printed scene makes an instructive contrast with the dark archway of Adelphi Wharf. Its fish stall and surrounding figures emerge mainly through lines and hatching against open paper. Children gather behind the sleeping seller; a woman balances a broad basket on her head, and a dog noses near the ground. The upright post divides the crowd, while the seller’s slumped posture interrupts its activity. The image turns rest into the centre of a busy social scene. Its humour depends on the different degrees of awareness distributed around the stall.

Three Children Playing with a Donkey belongs to this discussion too. Clément places it among works made on prepared carton, and the National Gallery of Art’s record associates both Géricault and Charlet with its 1820 lithograph. The scene sets the donkey’s resistance against the children’s efforts: one pulls from the right, another sits astride it, and the third raises an object behind. The fountain’s lion head remains motionless above this little struggle. The joint attribution should not be converted into an invented division of labour between the artists. ^{[3] [15]}

Returning to horses, working with others

The later French prints continued the concern with horses in different circumstances. Clément describes a suite of twelve small horse subjects issued by Gihaut and printed by Engelmann, beginning with a mare and foal. His entries move between pasture, stable, military transport and animals shown with handlers. The value of the group is its variation: a horse may be a companion, a working animal, a commodity or part of a military system. Treating all these images merely as evidence that Géricault loved horses misses the changing relationships each composition constructs. ^[3]

Collaboration also extended beyond Charlet. Chantilly’s account identifies works on Byron subjects made with Eugène Lami, including Mazeppa and Le Giaour. Here the medium could address literary drama as well as observed labour. The horse remained central, but its role changed again, becoming part of a violent narrative or an emotionally heightened encounter. These projects broaden the print oeuvre without supplying a reason to assign every mark on a jointly credited work to one artist. ^[2]

Géricault’s place in the history of lithography is therefore best understood through the range of problems he brought to it. The Städel’s 2017 exhibition situated his compositions within a much longer French history of the medium, alongside artists including Delacroix, Daumier, Redon and Toulouse-Lautrec. That later company does not make his prints preliminary sketches for someone else’s achievement. Their particular strength lies in the conjunction of physical observation and the possibilities of printed drawing: muscles and cloth, rough weather and harnesses, crowded streets and exposed paper. ^[16]

Reading an impression

A title identifies a composition; it does not identify every physical sheet that carries it. An impression is one pull of the printed image. A state records a change in the printable design or its lettering, while sheet measurements describe the actual paper object. These distinctions explain why two museum records can agree about a work and still give different dimensions or descriptions. The Met, for example, separately records the image of Adelphi Wharf as 25.2 × 31 cm and its sheet as 33 × 39.6 cm. The BnF’s wounded-soldiers record specifies a second state with the artist’s and printer’s names. ^{[4] [7]}

Hand additions introduce another level of difference, as the Cleveland Return from Russia demonstrates. Paper, inking, margins and later marks also belong to the sheet in front of us. It is worth examining the whole reproduction, including the space beneath the image, before comparing details. A change of size in an online display says little about the original scale, and a pale reproduction may conceal distinctions that remain legible in the object. The safest starting point is the holding institution’s account of its own impression.

Rarity claims need the same care. Clément’s 1866 catalogue repeatedly records the few examples known to him and explains that Géricault’s prints had initially attracted limited collecting interest. Christie’s later account discusses the survival of fragile cartons through the scholarship available in 1997. Both are valuable evidence about collecting and survival at particular dates; neither provides a verified total for the present. Chantilly’s almost complete collection, acquired by the duc d’Aumale in 1866, shows how much our access to this part of Géricault’s work depends on collectors who preserved sheets as objects. ^{[3] [13] [2]}

Finally, an original lithograph should be distinguished from a later reproduction of a Géricault painting or print. A modern poster may reproduce the same scene beautifully, but it has a different relationship to the act of making. The historical lithographs preserve compositions designed through a printing process, sometimes with surviving preparatory drawings, matrices, altered states or hand additions. Looking at them in that way restores the complexity concealed by the general word “print”: an image may be repeatable while each surviving sheet remains a particular material witness.