Killing a deer

Courbet's The Killing of a Deer , Photograph (1867). Etienne Karjp .

The painting was painted in the winter of 1866-1867 and became Courbet's last large-format work (the sizes of the painting are 355 cm and 505 cm). At an exhibition in the Paris Salon in 1869, the canvas caused a scandal. According to the then established artistic tradition, large formats were used to were reserved for Great Painting and historical scenes, and not hunting scenes, or provincial species.

Juliet Courbet in 1881 sold the painting at auction to the French government for 33,900 francs. Initially, the work was stored in the Louvre, and then was transferred to the Besancon Museum in 1882.

The painting shows a deer that fell on snowy ground, which is attacked by a flock of hunting dogs. On the left there are two men: the beater - Jules Cusinier, a resident of Ornan, and on horseback - Felix Gaudi from Wuillafans ^[2] . This scene, partly based on the artist’s autobiography, is an allegory for events twelve years earlier.

Deer killing refers to the traditional hunting scenes that became popular after the 17th century. Using the techniques of realism, which bring him closer to the Flemings, Courbet creates his picture with the help of a collage: first a deer, then a rider on the right, dogs and, finally, a beater. Hunting scenes began to appear in Courbet's works from 1857, starting with La Curée (kept at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts ). Another large-format painting exhibited at the Orsay Museum on the same subject is called Le Rut du printemps, deer fight (1861).

Several paintings influenced this picture, including the Eugene Delacroix Massacre on Chios (1824), especially the character on horseback ^[3] .

• Castan, Auguste, Histoire et description des musées de la ville de Besançon , Paris, 1889, p. 28.
• Courthion, Pierre, Tout l'Œuvre peint de Courbet , Paris, 1987, p. 107, n ° 595, pl. Xxxiv.
• Fernier, Robert, La Vie et l'Œuvre de Gustave Courbet, Catalog raisonné. Tome II: 1866-1877. Peinture. Dessins. Sculptures , Paris, Lausanne, 1978, p. 46-47, Template: N ° .
• Pinette, Matthieu, Soulier-François, Françoise, De Belini à Bonnard: chefs-d'œuvre de la peinture , Besançon, 1992, p. 184-185.
• Robinson, Margaret, Courbet's Hunt Scenes. The End of a Tradition, Providence, Rhode Island, 1990, p. 1-24.

• Gustave Courbet (1819-1877) , Paris, Grand Palais, 1977-1978, pp. 42-43, 45, 191, 193.
• Gustave Courbet , Paris, 2007, 476 p.