Which ship rescued the 15 survivors from the raft of the Méduse?

The ship that rescued the 15 survivors from the raft of the Méduse was the Argus.

The French frigate Méduse ran aground off the coast of West Africa on 2 July 1816. At least 146 people were placed on a hastily built raft after the ship’s boats could not carry everyone. The raft was cut loose and drifted for 13 days with dangerously little food and water.

On 17 July, the brig Argus came upon the raft by chance. Only 15 men remained alive at the time of rescue; five later died from the effects of starvation, dehydration, and exposure. This is why accounts sometimes distinguish between the 15 people rescued and the 10 who ultimately survived.

The disaster became a major scandal because of poor leadership and the abandonment of the raft. Théodore Géricault’s 1818–1819 painting The Raft of the Medusa shows the survivors signaling toward a distant ship, identified as the Argus, helping turn the tragedy into an iconic work of French Romanticism.