Study of the Model Joseph
Handmade Replica

Original Artwork Details
Current location: Musée du Louvre

Original size: 18.5 x 15.2 in (47 x 38.7 cm)

Date created: 1818

Art movement: Romanticism

Théodore Géricault painted this portrait as a study for his most famous painting, The Raft of the Medusa. The painter captured his model with great sympathy and spontaneity; his watery eyes are not fixed on anything external to the canvas but seem to express an inner torment. 

The model is Joseph, whose full name has not come down to us. Born in Santo Domingo (now Haiti), he emigrated to France, where he found a job as an acrobat before being recruited by Géricault as a model.