From left to right Monomanie du vol des enfants, Monomanie du commandement militaire, Monomanie du vol, La monomanie du jeu, Monomanie de l’envie.

The Monomanies is a series of ten paintings by Théodore Géricault produced between 1821 and 1824 of the patients of Étienne-Jean Georget, head physician at the Salpêtrière Parisian psychiatric ward. The paintings were commissioned by Georget so that his students could study the physical traits of these “monomaniacs“, in a sort of scientific realism that parallels the literary realism of that time.

Translation from left to right: a child kidnapper, a man obsessed with the military, a kleptomaniac, a gambling addict and a woman suffering from obsessive envy.

More on monomania.