Edouard Armand-Dumaresq
Portrait of Joseph
1845-1894
Scroll
Edouard Armand-Dumaresq
Portrait of Joseph
1845-1894
Physical Qualities
Oil on wood panel, Unframed: 7 3/8 × 5 9/16 in. (18.7 × 14.1 cm.)
Framed: 12 1/4 × 10 5/8 × 1 1/2 in. (31.1 × 27 × 3.8 cm.)
Credit Line
The George A. Lucas Collection, purchased with funds from the State of Maryland, Laurence and Stella Bendann Fund, and contributions from individuals, foundations, and corporations throughout the Baltimore community
Object Number
1996.45.7
The small head study depicts the aged, poised face of Joseph, a model known today only by his first name. Here, Edouard Armand-Dumaresq presented him as a northern African or Arabian man wearing a turban and robe, while in fact Joseph was born in Saint Domingue, Haiti, around 1793. Joseph moved to France in 1803 just as Haiti’s slave revolt ended French colonial rule on the island. His career grew quickly after he posed for three of the figures in French artist Théodore Géricault’s (1791–1824) politically scandalous painting, The Raft of the Medusa.
The Baltimore Museum of Art by purchase, 1996; The Maryland Institute College of Art,
through Henry Walters, Baltimore, by bequest 1909; from George A. Lucas, Paris
through Henry Walters, Baltimore, by bequest 1909; from George A. Lucas, Paris
Jacobs Wing Rotations 2024
Jacobs Wing Rotations 2025
Inscribed: FACE: LL, 'ARMAND-DUMARES'. FACE, FRAME: TL, 'BMA cat/1965/#7'. VERSO, FRAME: (ink on paper), 'ARMAND-DUMARESQ (L.E.)/né a Paris/1826/mort en/1895/Eleve de Couture(?)/.../Portrait of/'Joseph'/a celebrated model who/posed to Gericault for the/negro in his celebrated/picture now in the Louvre/'Le manfrage(?) de la Meduse'.
On View at the BMA
