Spanish horse in a stable

Géricault made this in his early twenties, between about 1810 and 1813, while he was still copying old masters in the Louvre and spending as much time in stables as in studios. The imperial stables were full of foreign horses then, and Spanish stock had a long reputation for parade and riding-school work. Several of his stable pieces share the same wooden posts topped with round knobs, which is how the group can be recognised. Nobody had commissioned any of them. They were practice, years before the Raft of the Medusa. The Louvre bought the picture at auction in 1849 for 520 francs, twenty-five years after Géricault died at 32 from injuries and illness that followed a series of riding falls.