Théodore Géricault

This small sketch of a soldier reaching forward to halt a man fleeing with a standard or sign can be connected to three sheets in the Musée Bonnat, Bayonne, that depict the same subject (807, 808, 809; Bazin 499, 500, 502). The Bayonne sheets are drawn in black chalk, with touches of brown ink, and contain more fully described figures in a swirl of pentimenti. Géricault experimented with the idea, depicting the soldier wearing a cape without a helmet and seen in profile arresting the enemy. This man wears the thick hair, beard, and animal skin of a non-Roman as he flees to the left. The second sheet finds the roman soldier helmeted and shown frontally as he reaches out to stop the man, who is seen from behind and turns his head to look back. A third sheet gives the Roman a laurel crown and is enmeshed with the studies of horses and other motifs on the page. This abbreviated study shows both figures moving almost balletically on their toes; it might be an early idea for the scene explored in greater detail in the drawings from Bayonne.