1824 (ca.), Theodore Gericault, Scene from the Epidemic of Yellow Fever in Cadix -- Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (Richmond)
From the museum label:
Géricault's interest in human suffering continued to preoccupy him even after his immense Raft of the Medusa (Louvre Museum, Paris) failed to win approval at the Salon exhibition of 1819. This scene is an imaginary depiction of the devastating yellow fever epidemic that struck Spain on several occasions during the first two decades of the 19th century and terrified the nearby population of France at the time.
To convey the horrible drama of impoverished people left to die in isolated asylums, Gericault repurposed some of the starving figures from the Medusa's composition. He perhaps intended this small but powerful scene as a preparatory study for a much larger work that he never had the time nor energy to complete, as he himself was to die from tuberculosis at the age of thirty-three.
1824 (ca.), Theodore Gericault, Scene from the Epidemic of Yellow Fever in Cadix -- Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (Richmond)
From the museum label:
Géricault's interest in human suffering continued to preoccupy him even after his immense Raft of the Medusa (Louvre Museum, Paris) failed to win approval at the Salon exhibition of 1819. This scene is an imaginary depiction of the devastating yellow fever epidemic that struck Spain on several occasions during the first two decades of the 19th century and terrified the nearby population of France at the time.
To convey the horrible drama of impoverished people left to die in isolated asylums, Gericault repurposed some of the starving figures from the Medusa's composition. He perhaps intended this small but powerful scene as a preparatory study for a much larger work that he never had the time nor energy to complete, as he himself was to die from tuberculosis at the age of thirty-three.