A Carabinier, Half-Length

When this was painted, around 1814, the soldier's outfit was only a few years old. Napoleon's carabiniers had ridden in blue coats and bearskin caps until a decree of December 1809 put them in white, with a steel breastplate sheathed in brass, and the regiments were fully equipped only in 1811. By April 1814 the empire that dressed them had fallen and Napoleon had abdicated. Géricault, then in his early twenties, painted several of these horsemen around that time, and another carabinier, shown with his horse, belongs to the museum in Rouen. Here the man is seen in profile, in his brass cuirass and red epaulettes. The Louvre bought the canvas in 1851, at a public sale, for 1,500 francs.