About 150 people on one raft0:00 / 0:45Preview
Ten stops, 23 minutes, on your phone in the museum. The first stop is free, the whole tour $4.99.
Stop 5 of 10 in The Louvre
The Raft of the Medusa
It fills a wall of room 700 in the Denon wing, about 5 by 7 meters of shipwreck.
Where to find it
Room 700 (Salle Mollien), Denon wing, first floor.
In 1816 the French frigate Méduse ran aground off the coast of West Africa. The crew built a raft from the wreck, and about 150 people were put on it. When the brig Argus found it nearly two weeks later, 15 were still alive.
Géricault met survivors, worked from scale models of the raft, visited morgues and studied dying patients in hospitals.
He painted the bleakest moment: the ship that would rescue them, the Argus, sailing away in the distance. It’s so small you can miss it.
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