Head of a Guillotined Man
Medium
Oil on panel
Dimensions
41 × 38 cm (16 1/8 × 14 15/16 in.); Framed: 53.3 × 50.8 × 7.6 cm (21 × 20 × 3 in.)
Classification
oil on panel
Department
Painting and Sculpture of Europe
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
119264
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
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....
About the Artist
Jean Louis André Théodore Géricault · 1791–1824
Jean-Louis André Théodore Géricault (1791–1824) was born into a prosperous bourgeois family in Rouen, France, the son of a lawyer who managed the family tobacco business. After moving to Paris around 1797, his artistic talent emerged early, nurtured in a circle that included his maternal uncle Jean-Baptiste Caruel and art dealer Jean-Louis Laneuville. Géricault began formal training in 1808 under ...