Mazeppa trouvé évanoui

This 1851 panel depicts Mazeppa found unconscious — a subject from Byron's narrative poem Mazeppa (1819), in which the Ukrainian Cossack hetman Ivan Mazepa, used as a young man as a punishment, is tied naked to a horse and rides across the steppe until the horse collapses and he is found and rescued by Cossacks. The subject was enormously popular among French Romantic painters, providing an excuse for the dramatic combination of naked male figure, wild horse, and extreme landscape. Géricault had treated related equestrian subjects; Delacroix and Vernet also explored Mazeppa. Chassériau's treatment focuses on the moment of discovery rather than the wild ride, giving the composition a stillness and pathos appropriate to the unconscious hero. The Louvre holds this panel as part of its Chassériau holdings.

The panel support gives the paint a smooth ground consistent with careful, controlled handling. The prostrate figure of Mazeppa is rendered with anatomical precision, his nude body painted with the neoclassical clarity of Chassériau's Ingres formation. The horse is painted with vigorous attention to musculature and the physical consequences of exhaustion.