A Hare and a Leg of Lamb (1742): Art, History and Details

A Hare and a Leg of Lamb (1742) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Jean-Baptiste Oudry (French, 1686–1755).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Oudry used a starkly simple composition and sterile background to emphasize his virtuosity in depicting textures, a highly desirable skill of still-life painters at this time. These artists were aiming for the highest level of accuracy—an effect of the Enlightenment, the contemporary intellectual movement that emphasized scientific reasoning in all pursuits. These paintings were generally displayed in hunting lodges or dining rooms, as a glorification of the hunt and the bounty it brings.

Object facts

• Title: A Hare and a Leg of Lamb
• Date: 1742
• Creator attribution: Jean-Baptiste Oudry (French, 1686–1755)
• Culture: France
• Type: Painting
• Technique: oil on canvas
• Dimensions: Framed: 118 x 92.5 x 6 cm (46 7/16 x 36 7/16 x 2 3/8 in.); Unframed: 98.2 x 73.5 cm (38 11/16 x 28 15/16 in.)
• Collection: P - French 18th Century
• Department: European Painting and Sculpture
• Accession number: 1969.53

A detail from the museum

This lavish display of game was painted one year after a devastating famine gripped France.

Collection credit

John L. Severance Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Salon (Exhibition : Paris, France), and Orry. Explication des peintures, sculptures, et autres ouvrages de messieurs de l'Académie royale: dont l'exposition a été ordonnée suivant l'intention de Sa Majesté, par M. Orry ... dans le grand Salon du Louvre ... a commencer le jour de S. Loüis 25. Aoust 1742. pour finir le jour de S. Matthieu 21. Septembre suivant. Paris: J. Collombat, 1742.
• Locquin, Jean. Catalogue raisonné de l'oeuvre de Jean-Baptiste Oudry: peintre du roi (1686-1755). Paris: Jean Schemit, 1912.
• Musée de l'Orangerie. Le cabinet de l'amateur, organisé par la Société des amis du Louvre en souvenir de Monsieur A.-S. Henraux, son président 1932-1953 [exposition] février - avril 1956. [Paris]: Éditions des musées nationaux, 1956.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.