Boxers

Théodore Gericault

1818 · Lithograph · Drawings and Prints

Gericault began to practice lithography—a medium associated with French Romanticism—in 1817, quickly mastering the technique. This image represents the popular English sport of boxing: two muscular combatants, in strikingly similar poses, confront one another. The black-and-white medium is used here to accentuate racial difference through stylized symmetries. In a dynamic and dramatic image, Gericault presents rivalry as a conflict between two male "opposites," with a highly charged space between them.

Artist

Théodore Gericault

Date

1818

Medium

Lithograph

Department

Drawings and Prints

Credit line

Rogers Fund, 1922