The Raft of the Medusa (first study)

On 17 July 1816, their 13th day adrift, the last survivors on the raft of the wrecked French frigate Méduse saw a sail on the horizon. It was the brig Argus, and it passed them by, coming back only about two hours later to pick them up. Géricault chose that moment of first sighting for his huge canvas, and this small sketch from 1818 is his first attempt at it in oil. Here the Argus is plainly a ship, hull and rigging clearly drawn, sitting on the skyline at the right while the men on the raft wave cloths towards it. In the finished painting the same ship has shrunk to a faint speck on the horizon. The sketch stayed in his studio until the sale held after his death in 1824, and the Louvre bought it in 1919.