Nude Warrior with a Spear

Gericault painted Nude Warrior with a Spear in 1816 as an oil on canvas work. It entered private ownership through a certificate dated 2 January 1919 by expert Georges Sortais, which recorded a gift from the artist to pupil Philippe Comairas [1803-1875]; this claim is noted in Charles Blanc's 1845 history of French painters. After Comairas' death the painting passed to Dr. Foucault and subsequently to his brother-in-law M. de Cuvillon, possibly Louis-Robert de Cuvillon.

It resurfaced in 1919 when Léon Abel Gaboriaud acquired it and later lent it to a 1924 Gericault centennial exhibition in Paris. Gaboriaud sold the work at Galerie Charpentier in May 1950 (lot 6), after which it was purchased by Julius H. Weitzner and sold to collector Chester Dale in October 1950. Dale bequeathed the painting to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., where it remains in the collection.

Nude Warrior with a Spear has been in the collection of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., since 1963, when it entered as part of the bequest of Chester Dale (1883–1962). It had been sold to Dale on 10 October 1950 by Julius H. Weitzner of New York, who had purchased it in 1950 at the Galerie Charpentier, Paris, where it was offered as lot 6 in the Léon Abel Gaboriaud sale on 17 May 1950 and bought in. Before Gaboriaud's ownership, the painting is said to have passed from Philippe Comairas to Dr. Foucault and then to his brother-in-law, M. de Cuvillon, though this early provenance rests on a 1919 certificate rather than firm documentation.

The work first drew broad public attention when Gaboriaud lent it to the centennial exhibition of Géricault's work organized by the duc de Trévise at the Hôtel Charpentier, Paris, in 1924.