Théodore Géricault

This sheet curiously juxtaposes a portrait study with an image of a hand and leg based on figures in Géricault's Raft of the Medusa, which debuted at the Salon of 1819. The hand is that of the young man at the right of the raft near the front who reaches forward to hoist himself up by grasping the thigh of the man in front of him, who, supported by barrels, waves a white cloth. The leg is that of the black man at the apex of the raft who steps up onto a barrel with the support of a man with a red head covering behind him.
Bazin suggests that the portrait is of Auguste Brunet, a close friend with whom the artist went on vacation to the village of Féricy, near Fontainebleau, in September 1819 after the king visited the Salon. The distinctive curly sideburns found in other portraits of Brunet confirm this identification. Brunet, who may have introduced Géricault to two of the survivors of the Medusa, Alexandre Corréard and Henri Savigny, and who published a critical tract De l'aristocracie et de la démocratie, were both subject to public backlash for their criticism of the government.
Inscriptions by the same hand are found on other sheets (Bazin 2109, 2110), and Bazin suggests that the page was made as a souvenir, with Géricault drawing the leg and hand from memory. Alexandre Colin traced the hand and leg twice on a sheet (Bazin 1977a), revealing the appeal of Géricault's selection of motifs.