GÉRICAULT, Théodore
(b. 1791, Rouen, d. 1824, Paris)

A Turk (Mustapha)

c. 1820
Black chalk and watercolour, 301 x 226 mm
Musée du Louvre, Paris

The quiet and melancholy Mustapha was a shipwrecked Turkish sailor Géricault had found in a Paris street and brought home as a model and companion. It is probably his features, dark eyes sad beneath his turban, that are depicted in several late studies of a Turk that strike the viewer as warmly individualized portraits.