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Your galleryThe Return from Russia
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Compare the walking soldier’s bent posture with the rider and the lowered head of the horse. Where does each body seem to carry weight?
Made in 1818, this lithograph recalls the French army’s disastrous retreat after Napoleon’s invasion of Russia in 1812. Two wounded soldiers replace the triumphant military hero. Black printing and a tan tint stone give the exhausted figures substance while leaving the surrounding landscape spare.
Lithograph in black with tan tint stone on ivory wove paper · Image: 44.4 × 36.1 cm · Art Institute of Chicago · Romanticism
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Details and source
- Museum title
- The Return from Russia
- Artist
- Théodore Géricault French, 1791-1824
- Date
- 1818
- Medium
- Lithograph in black with tan tint stone on ivory wove paper
- Dimensions
- Image: 44.4 × 36.1 cm (17 1/2 × 14 1/4 in.); Sheet: 58.7 × 41.9 cm (23 1/8 × 16 1/2 in.)
- Credit line
- Albert H. Wolf Memorial Collection
- Image license
- CC0 1.0 · Public domain
- Museum record
- Art Institute of Chicago
Galler’s rooms and hanging scale are imagined. The image is the museum’s original digital reproduction.