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A painting a day · No. 18 of 38

The Raft of the Medusa

Théodore Géricault (1791–1824)

1818–1819 · Oil on canvas · Musée du Louvre, Paris

The Raft of the Medusa, Théodore Géricault, 1818–1819
Public domain · image from Wikimedia Commons (full size there)

The story

In 1816 the French navy ship Méduse ran aground off West Africa. About 150 people were put on a raft; 15 were alive when it was found 13 days later. The captain was a political appointee, and the painting was a public scandal.

Look closer

  1. The bodies build a pyramid up to a Black man at the top, waving a cloth. Géricault put him at the peak of the picture's hope.
  2. The rescue ship is a tiny speck on the horizon. Can they be seen?
  3. The painting is huge: about 5 by 7 metres, so the people are life-size.

Did you know

Géricault interviewed survivors, built a model of the raft, and studied bodies in hospital morgues to get it right.

Why we can show it

Théodore Géricault died in 1824. UK copyright lasts for the artist’s life plus 70 years, so even under today’s rules this painting would have been free for anyone to show since 1895. The photograph is a faithful copy of a flat work, which creates no new copyright. We do not store the picture: it comes from Wikimedia Commons each time it is needed. More on this.