Who painted 'The Raft of the Medusa'?

Who painted “The Raft of the Medusa”? Théodore Géricault painted it between 1818 and 1819.

The monumental oil painting depicts survivors of the wreck of the French frigate Méduse, which ran aground off the coast of present-day Mauritania on 2 July 1816. At least 150 people were placed on a hastily built raft; only 15 survived the 13 days before rescue, enduring starvation, dehydration, and violence.

Géricault researched the disaster intensely. He interviewed survivors, built a scale model of the raft, studied bodies and hospital patients, and made numerous preparatory studies. The finished canvas shows the survivors spotting a distant rescue ship, while corpses and dying figures form the dark base of a dramatic pyramid.

First exhibited at the 1819 Paris Salon under the less revealing title Scène de Naufrage, the painting became an international sensation. Its contemporary political subject and emotional realism challenged Neoclassical ideals and helped establish French Romanticism. Delacroix even posed for one of the figures.