No.12. Theodore Gericault's large canvas, 'Les Naufragés de la Méduse' (Raft of the Medusa) became an icon of early 19th-century French Romanticism after it was exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1819, and is today one of masterpieces held in the Louvre. In 1816 the French frigate 'La Méduse' sailed for Senegal under command of an aristocratic captain of the French 'ancien regime', Hugues Duroy de Chaumareys, who had not been to sea for twenty years: there were some 400 people on board including 160 crew but also officials and the new governor of the colony, Colonel Julien-Désiré Schmaltz, who was being sent out for it to be handed back by Britain following closure of the Napoleonic War. Women, including Schmalz's wife, were also passengers. Owing to the governor's desire to make a fast passage after leaving Madeira, the ship parted company from the rest of her small convoy and ran in too close to the African coast, of which the captain had no informed knowledge. On 2 July 1816 she ran aground on the Arguin Shoal, over 30 miles off the coast of Mauretania and could not be refloated, having gone onto the muddy bank at the top of the spring tide. In the panic that ensued it was decided to build a raft and try and reach the coast by towing it with the boats: a 20-metre long raft was constructed from spars and other timber onto which 146 men and one woman were crowded, with other people in the boats, though 17 men decided to remain with the ship. Attempts to tow the raft proved impossible, whereon those in the boats - which included the incompetent captain and the governor - cut it loose. The boats reached the coast in safety though some in them died ashore while making their way overland to Senegal. Most of those on the raft died from starvation, exposure, thirst or being washed overboard. By the fourth day there were only 67 alive: survival cannibalism then began on the bodies of the dead by some of those left. On the eighth day the 15 strongest survivors threw the rest of the living overboard and survived until, by chance on 17 July (after 13 days on the raft), they were picked up by the brig 'Argus', one of 'La Méduse's original escorts, and taken to Port-Louis, Senegal. Five of the survivors, including the only black African, died within days. However, Captain Chaumareys quickly tried to reach 'La Méduse' agan from Port-Louis to recover the gold on board while she remained intact. When this party arrived they found three more men alive on board from the 17 who had remained with the ship, having been there 54 days. When the surviving ship's surgeon, Hubert Savigny, sent a report to the authorities it was leaked to the press in September 1816 and initiated a major political scandal. He and and another survivor, the geographer Alexandre Corréard, also publishd an account in 1817 that saw four more editions by 1821 and wide foreign translation. In 1817 Chaumareys was court-martialled in a 'whitewash' trial that put him in jail for three years rather than seeing him executed (the possible sentence under the charges): Schmaltz was also required to resign in 1818. The later, more positive outcome, was regulation to ensure that French military promotions were by competence rather than connections. The 25-year-old Gericault's painting was based on the 1817 survivors' account and discussion with its authors. It shows a moment of despair on the last day, when the surviving 'Naufragés' sighted a ship that did not see them, though the 'Argus' came to the rescue two hours later. The first mezzotint of the painting was by the eminent English engraver, Samuel Reynolds, and published in Paris and London in 1829: this is a later image, apparently no. 12 of a series yet to be confirmed. For a detailed print of the raft see PAD6114.