The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of March 19, 2025

Study for "The Revolt of Cairo"

1810
(French, 1767–1824)
France, 19th century
pen and brown ink; framing lines in pen and brown ink
Sheet: 28.1 x 43 cm (11 1/16 x 16 15/16 in.); Secondary Support: 29.8 x 44.4 cm (11 3/4 x 17 1/2 in.)
Bequest of Muriel Butkin 2008.372
Location: not on view

Description

Girodet made this linear study early on in the process of planning his Revolt of Cairo (see photo), which today hangs in the National Museum of the Château of Versailles. The composition shows French soldiers crushing a rebellion in Cairo prompted by Napoleon's invasion and occupation of the city in 1798. The very thin support of the drawing and its even contour lines indicate that the artist might have produced it by tracing an earlier version of the composition. The museum owns a rough oil sketch for The Revolt of Cairo that is about half the size of the present drawing.
  • Heim Gallery. Exhibition of French Drawings: Neo-Classicism, 20 February - 27 March 1975. London: Heim Gallery, 1975. Mentioned and Reproduced: cat. no. 52, Introduction
    Shepherd Gallery. Non-Dissenters : One Hundred and Seventy French Nineteenth Century Drawings, Pastels and Watercolors. New York: Shepherd Gallery, 1976. Mentioned and Reproduced: cat. no. 95
    Brown University. All the Banners Wave: Art and War in the Romantic Era, 1792-1851 : an Exhibition by the Department of Art, Brown University, Bell Gallery, List Art Center, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, February 26 Through March 28, 1982. Providence, R.I.: The Dept, 1982. Mentioned and Reproduced: cat. no. 11a, p. 29, 52-53
    Foster, Carter E., Sylvain Bellenger, and Patrick Shaw Cable. French Master Drawings from the Collection of Muriel Butkin. [Cleveland, Ohio]: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2001. Mentioned and Reproduced: cat. no. 24, p. 58-59
  • French Master Drawings from the Collection of Muriel Butkin. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (August 26-October 28, 2001); Dahesh Museum of Art (February 19-May 18, 2002).
    All the Banners Wave: Art and War in the Romantic Era 1792-1851, Bell Gallery, Brown University, Providence (1982), 29, 52-53, no. 11a, repr.
    Non-Dissenters: Fifth Exhibition Marking Our Tenth Anniversary, Shepherd Gallery, New York (1976), no. 95, repr.;
    French Drawings: Neo-Classicism, Heim Gallery, London (1975), no. 52, repr. (also mentioned in introduction);
  • {{cite web|title=Study for "The Revolt of Cairo"|url=false|author=Anne-Louis Girodet de Roucy-Trioson|year=1810|access-date=19 March 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/2008.372