Study for Scène de déluge (recto); A mounted soldiers fighting a warrior (verso)

Known to Bazin from a tracing of its recto by Alexandre Colin (1798-1875), this drawing only resurfaced in 2009 when it appeared in a Sotheby’s sale in Paris. The recto is a study for Géricault’s Scène de déluge, a canvas measuring 97 x 130 cm. now in the Louvre (Bazin, op. cit., III, no. 934) and dating from soon before the artist’s departure to Rome in October 1816. Although represented in reverse and less prominently a horse swimming in the water, to which a man with a cadaver tries to hold on, does appear in the painting. Both the present drawing and the Louvre painting are evidently inspired by Poussin’s Déluge also in the Louvre. Géricault has in fact made a copy of the detail from that masterpiece showing a turbaned man clinging to a swimming horse (Bazin, op. cit., III, no. 925, now in the Cleveland Museum of Art, Bequest of Muriel Butkin, inv. 2008.378).

The sketch on the verso, executed with great vigor, shows a rider fighting with a warrior on foot. Probably executed at around the same time as the recto, it has not been connected to any known painting or project. It may well be inspired by an Old Master painting.
The first recorded owner of this drawing, Joseph-Félix Le Blanc de La Combe (1790-1862) was a Bonapartist like Géricault, and a career soldier. Also a friend of Delacroix, he wrote a well-received monograph on the painter and engraver Nicolas-Toussaint Charlet (1792-1845) who was a member of Géricault’s circle.