The Raft of the Medusa
1819 · Oil on canvas · Musée du Louvre, Paris
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About this work
- Artist
- Théodore Géricault (1791–1824)
- Year
- 1819
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Original size
- 491 × 716 cm
- Collection
- Musée du Louvre, Paris
- Movement
- Romanticism
Survivors of the wreck of the French frigate Méduse, adrift for thirteen days on a makeshift raft off the coast of West Africa, wave desperately at a ship on the horizon while the dead and dying slump around them. The disaster of July 1816, in which about 150 people were abandoned and only fifteen lived, had become a political scandal, and Géricault, aged 27, chose it for an uncommissioned canvas more than seven metres wide. He interviewed survivors, built a scale model of the raft and studied corpses in hospitals and morgues to get the flesh right. Shown at the Salon of 1819 under the neutral title Shipwreck Scene, it divided critics and made his name. The Louvre acquired it after his death in 1824, and it hangs there as the founding image of French Romantic painting.
This print reproduces the whole work, uncropped, from a high-resolution scan of the original. The original is in the public domain.
Where it works
Survivors waving at a distant ship from a raft of the dead, a vast dark history picture for a study, den or long hallway at 36×24 in black. A charcoal, deep green or warm grey wall; it wants distance and should hang alone.
- Style
- Romanticism painting
- Era
- 19th century (1819)
- Orientation
- Landscape
- Mood
- grand
- Rooms
- living room, dining room
- Good gift for
- housewarming, art lovers
Size. Prints at 18×12, 24×16, 36×24 in — 18×12 for a shelf, desk or a gallery-wall grid; 24×16 above a console or sideboard; 36×24 as the statement piece above a sofa or headboard.
Framing. The gallery ground is part of the print, so frame it without a mat — black suits the deep tones of this period; oak lightens it.
Pairing. Pairs as a set of three with other famous painting prints (10% off three or more).
Details & materials
Shipping & returns
Is this the whole painting, or a crop?
Is The Raft of the Medusa in the public domain?
What is it printed on?
When was The Raft of the Medusa painted, and in what medium?
What size works above a sofa or bed?
About this design
The Madten promise
An exhibition poster
The same artwork as a gallery exhibition poster — title, artist & date typeset beneath the image on a soft ground.
The full-bleed edition
The painting printed edge-to-edge at its own proportions, filling the whole sheet — and available on gallery-wrapped canvas.
