Wolf Hunt: Animal Wounded and Attacked by Dogs, from the series Hunting Scenes

Art Historical Context

Created in 1829, *Wolf Hunt: Animal Wounded and Attacked by Dogs* belongs to Alexandre-Gabriel Decamps’s series *Hunting Scenes*. Decamps, a leading figure of the French Romantic movement, frequently turned to dramatic animal subjects that captured both the beauty and violence of the natural world. This lithograph, published by Gihaut Frères and Charles Tilt, allowed the artist’s vivid compositions to reach a wide audience beyond the traditional confines of painting. Lithography, still a relatively new printmaking technique in the late 1820s, offered artists fluid lines and rich tonal contrasts ideally suited to dynamic scenes like this one. The image’s focus on a wounded wolf beset by dogs conveys the raw energy and tension typical of Romantic interest in untamed nature and the hunt. Acquired by the Metropolitan Museum in 1926 through the Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, the print preserves Decamps’s early exploration of animal subjects that would later define much of his career. Its modest sheet size invites close viewing, revealing the careful orchestration of movement and emotion within a single, charged moment.

About the Artist

Alexandre-Gabriel Decamps|Gihaut Frères|Gihaut Frères|Charles Tilt · 1803–1860

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