Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640)

The Tiger Hunt 1617-1618

Oil on canvas 253 cm x 319 cm

Museum of Fine Arts of Rennes

The Tiger Hunt was originally part of a cycle of four exotic hunts carried out by Rubens around 1616: the other canvases depicted lions, hippopotamuses or even wild boars. This set was intended to adorn the hunting lodge of Elector Maximilian of Bavaria, near Munich. The four paintings were brought back to France following the conquests of Napoleon, then dispersed between the museums of Marseilles, Rennes and Bordeaux where La Chasse aux lions was destroyed during a fire in the 19th century. The work devoted to hippopotamuses returned to Austria, where it is now exhibited at the Pinakothek in Munich.

When Rubens received this commission, he had recently returned from a long stay in Italy. For his composition of La Chasse au tigre, he took up the outline of a destroyed work by Leonardo da Vinci representing the battle of Anghiari, copies of which he had seen during his visit to Florence. The confrontation of soldiers during battle gives way to that of Western and Eastern horsemen with exotic wild animals. This exuberant assembly intertwines in a centrifugal whirlwind of lines and colors. The first talent of Rubens, and one of the keys to his immense success with the great European courts, lies mainly in the unity he gives to such scenes where numerous characters appear. With these creations, the artist offers a dynamic and decorative aesthetic perfectly suited to the ornamentation of large royal and aristocratic residences.

The painter plays with the effects of contrast between cold colors and warm colors, between figures and animals. With an extraordinary capacity for invention, he set up formulas or themes, such as exotic hunts here, which would have a considerable influence on European painting during the 18th and 19th centuries.