A lost Géricault painting was found while shooting a documentary about the artist. The painting was located in a storage room of the Rochefort City Museum. A specialist and Géricault expert named Bruno Chenique located the painting, which had not been displayed since before 1860. In the 1970s the status of the painting was further downgraded from doubted to inauthentic. After the painting resurfaced in recent years, conservators began to perform scientific tests to re-valuate the work’s status. According to Chenique, multispectral analysis has strengthened the painting’s prospects. While conservators are cautious, Chenique has already authenticated 300 works by Géricault and sees the painting as a likely addition to his list of attributions. Multispectral analysis is a scientific test that is increasingly used in the authentication process by conservation labs.

Find out now if you have an authentic Jean-Louis André Théodore Géricault painting or drawing: