Alexandre Corréard

Born in Serres, France, on October 8, 1788, Alexandre Corréard became an engineer trained in the Arts et Métiers tradition and later worked as a geographer and journalist. He is most closely linked with the frigate Méduse, which wrecked off the coast of West Africa in 1816 while he was aboard as an engineer-geographer.

Corréard survived the catastrophe and the ordeal that followed on the raft, then went on to write about it with another survivor, Henri Savigny. Their account gave the disaster lasting public attention and helped shape how later generations understood the event that also inspired Théodore Géricault's The Raft of the Medusa.

He died at Avon, in Seine-et-Marne, on February 16, 1857. Although he is not as widely remembered as the painting connected to the tragedy, his testimony remains an important firsthand link to one of France's most notorious maritime disasters.