Galerie Dreyfus
64
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JEAN-BAPTISTE OUDRY (PARIS, 1686 – BEAUVAIS, 1755)
Still Lif…
See original version (French)
64
-
JEAN-BAPTISTE OUDRY (PARIS, 1686 – BEAUVAIS, 1755)
Still Lif…
See original version (French)
Estimate €70,000 - €88,000
Voluntary lot
Description
JEAN-BAPTISTE OUDRY
(PARIS, 1686 – BEAUVAIS, 1755)
Still Life with Fruit and Game
1740
Oil on canvas
113 x 88 cm.
Signed and dated lower right ‘Oudry 1740’
Provenance
Heim Gallery, London; Auction, Paris, Palais Galliera, 23 March 1962;
Wrightsman Collection, New York.
Fur and feathers intertwined… In a strange yet graceful pairing, a hare and
a partridge hang from the same nail. Trophies from the same hunt, they seem
frozen, each in a final movement: a leap for one, flight for the other. Depicted at the
centre of the composition and framed by both a painted and a real border, they are the
main protagonists of this ‘still life’ and, as such, dominate the fruit and the
kettle arranged below. Subtly arranged, the composition strikes a balance between
these three forms set within a rectangular yet concave niche. The pale stone, with its
greenish sheen against which they stand out, highlights the warm tones of this game
and the rendering of the textures—the rabbit’s fur and the bird’s plumage in their subtle colours. Below,
the round, matt shapes of the citrus fruits, along with the rounded form of the kettle with its glossy sheen,
contrast their geometric shapes with the organic forms of the animals. Everything
here is a quest for a sensual materiality verging on trompe-l’œil. The reflections in
the copper, the crevices in the stone, the lumpy skin of the fruit, the tufts of fur
and the downy texture of the feathers are all details depicted for the sheer pleasure of the eye.
Jean-Baptiste Oudry (1686–1755) was a French animal painter. He began his first
apprenticeship in the studio of Michel Serre, a painter from Marseille who had been based in Paris for a time,
before becoming a pupil of Nicolas de Largillière (1656–1746). Having become a history painter and
portraitist, he was appointed professor at the Royal Academy of Painting upon the death of François Desportes
in 1743, and subsequently became the official painter to the royal hunting party. Oudry then became the portraitist of the
exotic animals at the Menagerie of Versailles, and above all of the dogs and, consequently, the hunts.
His contemporaries appreciated his ability to project human emotions onto the animals
he painted from life. In 1728, with horses at his disposal, he was ordered to accompany the
king’s retinue whilst the king was hunting deer, so that he might sketch the events of the hunt from life and
prepare large-scale paintings for the royal residences. From 1733 onwards, the commission
for the ‘Chasses Royales’ tapestry series kept the artist occupied for many years. Oudry played an
important role as official painter to the Beauvais tapestry workshop, where he
served as artistic director from 1734 until his death; in 1736, he became an inspector at
the Gobelins. His large-scale works then served as models for tapestries that the
royal workshops wove based on his cartoons.
See original version (French)
Auto-translation. Refer to original language for legal validity.
Pictures credits: Contact the Auction House
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