Dervish in His Stall

c. 1820

Géricault was fascinated with horses throughout his career. This work was probably made as an independent study of a specific animal, rather than as a preparatory sketch for a larger painting. For many years, it was unclear whether the work was by Géricault or a copy by another artist. One of Géricault’s pupils, however, remembered that his teacher had made an unfinished study of a horse named Dervish, and conservation of the Clark’s painting in 2007 revealed an inscription that read “le derviche.”

Medium	oil on paper, mounted on canvas
Dimensions	10 x 13 7/16 in. (25.4 x 34.2 cm) Frame: 14 1/2 x 17 7/8 x 2 1/4 in. (36.8 x 45.4 x 5.7 cm)
Object Number	1955.746
Acquisition	Acquired by Sterling and Francine Clark before 1955
Status	On View

Image Caption

Théodore Géricault, Dervish in His Stall, c. 1820, oil on paper, mounted on canvas. Clark Art Institute, 1955.746

Select Bibliography

London: Bethnal Green Branch of the South Kensington Museum.. Catalogue of the Collection of Paintings, Porcelain...and Other Works of Art Lent by Sir Richard Wallace.. June 24, 1872-April 1975.. Ipswich (England): Ipswich Art Gallery.. Exhibition of Paintings.. Opened June 30, 1880.. Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Exhibit Five, Supplement: South Gallery. Exhibition catalogue. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1959. . Inventory, 1871, of 2, rue Lafitte, Paris, residence of the fourth Marquess of Hertford.. Ingamells, 1986, p. 103.. . Inventory, 1890, of Hertford House, London, residence of Sir Richard Wallace.. Ingamells, 1986, p. 103.. Daulte, François. "Des Renoir et des chevaux." Connaissance des Arts 103 (September 1960): 26–38. Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. French Paintings of the Nineteenth Century. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1963. Lorenz Eitner.. Letter to George Hamilton.. May 31, 1966.. Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. List of Paintings in the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1970. Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. List of Paintings in the Sterling & Francine Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1972. Grunchec, Philippe. "Géricault: problèmes de méthode."Revue de l'art 43 (Editions du C.N.R.S., 1979): 37-58. Eitner, Lorenz E. A. "The Literature of Art: Tout l'oeuvre peint de Géricault." Apollo 122 (March 1980). Kurata, Saburo. Fine Arts of the World. Tokyo: Orion, 1980. Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. List of Paintings in the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1984. Kern, Steven, ed. List of Paintings in the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1992. Grunchec, Philippe. L'Opera completa di Géricault. Classici dell'arte 8. Milan: Rizzoli, 1978. Grunchec, Philippe. Tout l'oeuvre peint de Géricault. Classiques de l'art. Paris: Flammarion, 1978. Bazin, Germain. Le retour à Paris: Synthèse d'expériences plastiques. Vol. 5 of Théodore Géricault: Etude critique, documents et catalogue raisonné. Paris: Bibliothèque des Arts, 1992. Lees, Sarah, ed. Nineteenth-Century European Paintings at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute; New Haven and London: distributed by Yale University Press, 2012.

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EUROPEAN PAINTINGS CATALOGUE ENTRY

Provenance

The artist (possibly his sale, Hôtel de Bullion, Paris, 2–3 Nov. 1824, not in cat.);¹ Richard Seymour-Conway, fourth Marquess of Hertford (d. 1870); Sir Richard Wallace, his son, by descent (1870–d. 1890);² Amélie Julie Charlotte, Lady Wallace, his wife, by descent (1890–d. 1897, bequeathed to Scott); Sir John E. A. Murray Scott, London (1897–d. 1912, sale, Christie’s, London, 27 June 1913, no. 69, as A Horse in a Stable, sold to Arnold & Tripp); [R. H. Tripp, London, 1913–18, sold to Clark, 18 Jan. 1918, as A Horse in a Stable: Le Derviche]; Robert Sterling Clark (1918–55); Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1955. 1. In a written addition found in a copy of the sale catalogue [British Museum, London], there is a work titled Cheval bai brun (Brown Bay Horse). If the Clark painting is accepted as the original among the four related works, it is likely to correspond to the painting in the sale. The annotated catalogue is reprinted in Germain Bazin, Théodore Géricault: Étude crtitique, documents et catalogue raisonné, 1987–97, vol. 1, p. 96. The catalogue is Lugt 10747. 2. Wallace placed the painting on long-term loan to the South Kensington Museum from 1872 to 1875; see London 1872–75, no. 528.