Théodore Géricault (French, 1791-1824)

This poignant portrait of General Letellier, lying dead in his bed, was painted by Théodore Géricault after witnessing the scene. General Letellier, a veteran of the Napoleonic wars, was perhaps most famous for commanding the battery that killed General Moreau, Napoleon's opponent, while he was talking to Tsar Alexander I in Dresden on 27 August 1813.

Yet it was General Letellier's personal tragedy that formed the subject of Géricault's painting. The General shot himself in bed in July 1818, in a moment of despair after the accidental death of his wife Adile. Géricault happened to be with a friend of Letellier's, Colonel Bro, when the two men paid a visit to the General. They found his dead body, with a scarf belonging to his wife wrapped around his neck, and a pistol, still warm, lying on the bed.

Géricault instantly made a sketch of the melancholic scene, astonishing for its realism and lucid clarity, without any sign of pathos or melodrama (now in Rouen, Musée des Beaux Arts). It was from this sketch that he later executed the present picture, which the artist gave to Colonel Bro as a memento of his dead friend. The painting remained in the Bro family until 1954. Another version in oil exists, which both Bazin and Eitner regard as a copy (Bazin, op. cit., 1749A).