The Flemish Farrier / Théodore Géricault
About this Item
Record Details
- Accession Number
- 2008/2.374
- Title
- The Flemish Farrier
- Artist
- Théodore Géricault
- Artist Nationality
- French
- Artist Life Dates
- 1791-1824
- Medium and Support
- lithograph on cream wove paper
- Object Creation Date
- 1821
- Object Creation Place
- Europe (continent)
- France (nation)
- Creation Place 1
- Europe (continent)
- Creation Place 2
- France (nation)
- Credit Line
- Gift of Ruth W. and Clarence J. Boldt, Jr.
- Dimensions
- 41.91 cm x 49.53 cm (16 1/2 in. x 19 1/2 in.)
- Century
- 19th century
- Primary Object Classification
- Primary Object Type
- planographic print
- Secondary Object Type
- lithograph
- Physical Description
- Paper size: h 33 3/5cm x tw 42 1/2cm & bw 42 3/10cm. Image size: h 22 7/10cm x w 31 2/5cm.
- This lithograph is printed is tones of brown ink on cream colored paper. There is a large dappled horse standing in a stall with its left rear hoof raised. On the left, a man, standing with feet braced and muscular arms extended, uses tools to attach a shoe to the horse's hoof. Steam billows from the hot metal shoe. On the right, a man stands leaning against the stall and a small child reaches up toward the horse's head. The horse bends its head down toward the child. There is an English inscription below this scene that identifies the artist, title and publisher.
- Subject Matter
- A talented painter of horses, Géricault’s equine works received fresh stimulus from the work of English artists such as David Wilkie’s genre and hunting scenes and James Ward’s heroic paintings of horses. Following his 1820 visit to England, Géricault executed a number of lithographs showing horses being shoed and coal carts with their robust draft horses.
- The Flemish Farrier conveys the close quarters and dark working conditions of a blacksmith’s shop as the horse is restrained while being fitted for shoes. Both the horse and the smith have tensed muscles and the subject recalls Géricault’s earlier exploration of the relationship between man and horse in the Barberi riderless horse race in Rome (see double-sided drawing 1984/1.286). In those earlier works, the arcs of arms and necks and their related forces take on a geometric purity; here the greater realism of this farrier at work shows the two not straining against one another as much as sharing the same tense musculature. This print is a particularly luminous image; the steam and smoke and the delicate gradations in values in this lithograph evoke a rich palpable atmosphere.
- Secondary Keywords
- transfer method
- animals and creatures
- groups of people
- kinship groups
- mammals
- objects we use
- people
- people (agents)
- people and culture
- planographic prints
- prints
- prints by process
- prints by process or technique
- social groups
- visual works
- visual works by medium or technique
- Rights
- If you are interested in using an image for a publication, please visit https://umma.umich.edu/about/services/request-image/ for more information and to fill out the online Image Rights and Reproductions Request Form.
Technical Details
- Collection
- University of Michigan Museum of Art
- Image Size
- 4248 x 3280
- File Size
- 2 MB
- Record
- 2008/2.374
- Link to this Item
-
https://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/musart/x-2008-sl-2.374/2008_2_374.jpg
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Cite this Item
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- Full citation
-
"The Flemish Farrier; Théodore Géricault." In the digital collection University of Michigan Museum of Art. https://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/musart/x-2008-sl-2.374/2008_2_374.jpg. University of Michigan Library Digital Collections. Accessed April 24, 2024.
