As he had anticipated, the painting proved highly controversial at its first appearance in the 1819 Paris Salon, attracting passionate praise and condemnation in equal measure. He visited hospitals and morgues where he could view, first-hand, the colour and texture of the flesh of the dying and dead. He interviewed two of the survivors and constructed a detailed scale model of the raft. The event fascinated him, and before he began work on the final painting, he undertook extensive research and produced many preparatory sketches. Géricault chose this large-scale uncommissioned work to launch his career, using a subject that had already generated widespread public interest. The event became an international scandal, in part because its cause was widely attributed to the incompetence of the French captain. On 5 July 1816, at least 147 people were set adrift on a hurriedly constructed raft all but 15 died in the 13 days before their rescue, and those who survived endured starvation and dehydration and practiced cannibalism (the custom of the sea). At 491 by 716 cm (16 ft 1 in by 23 ft 6 in), it is an over-life-size painting that depicts a moment from the aftermath of the wreck of the French naval frigate Méduse, which ran aground off the coast of today's Mauritania on 2 July 1816. Completed when the artist was 27, the work has become an icon of French Romanticism.

The Raft of the Medusa ( French: Le Radeau de la Méduse ) – originally titled Scène de Naufrage ( Shipwreck Scene) – is an oil painting of 1818–19 by the French Romantic painter and lithographer Théodore Géricault (1791–1824). For the oratorio, see Das Floß der Medusa.

Wreck of the Medusa by Alexander McKee