1-624-187 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

'The Raft of the Medusa', 1900. The 'Medusa' was a French frigate wrecked on a sandbank off the coast of Senegal in 1816. The incident became infamous due to the incompetence of the ship's captain and the inadequacy of the rescue effort. Of 150 people who tried to escape on a raft made from masts and crossbeams, only 15 survived having been adrift for two weeks without food and water. Several paintings of the disaster were made, with Gericault's, painted in 1816, the most famous.