Animal painting was a distinct and well-respected genre in eighteenth-century France, where hunting was a central activity in aristocratic life. Oudry, the century’s leading animal painter, exhibited this canvas and the nearby Dog Guarding Dead Game at the Salon of 1753. While not conceived as pendants, the two were hung together by Ange Laurent de La Live de Jully, an important collector in developing what was still considered a novel idea in eighteenth-century Paris: patronizing contemporary French painters.
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Title:Ducks Resting in Sunshine
Artist:Jean-Baptiste Oudry (French, Paris 1686–1755 Beauvais)
Date:1753
Medium:Oil on canvas
Dimensions:25 1/2 x 31 3/4 in. (64.8 x 80.6 cm)
Classification:Paintings
Credit Line:Purchase, 1871
Accession Number:71.57
Celebrated as a painter of still lifes and particularly of animals, Jean Baptiste Oudry often drew and painted sketches outdoors, working directly from nature. According to his biographers at the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture, he not only made repeated visits to the forests around Paris, but traveled to Dieppe to see the freshest fish. The seven ducks Oudry depicts here are set in a carefully observed landscape. Although many of his settings are recognizable places, this is likely an invented location. See also 71.89.
Katharine Baetjer 2010
Inscription: Signed and dated (lower left): JB. oudry / 1753
Ange Laurent de La Live de Jully, Paris (after 1764–70; his sale, Rémy, Paris, May 2–14, 1770, no. 70, this picture and The Met 71.89 for 501 livres to Leroy or Le Roy); [Léon Gauchez and Alexis Febvre, Paris, until 1870; sold to Blodgett]; William T. Blodgett, Paris and New York (1870–71; sold half share to Johnston); William T. Blodgett and John Taylor Johnston, New York (1871; sold to The Met)
Paris. Salon. August 25–September 25, 1753, no. 31.
New York. Wildenstein & Co., Inc. "Paris — New York, A Continuing Romance," November 3–December 17, 1977, no. 45.
Paris. Galeries nationales du Grand Palais. "J.-B. Oudry, 1686–1755," October 1, 1982–January 3, 1983, no. 146.
Louis Gougenot. Mémoires inédits sur la vie et les ouvrages des membres de l'académie royale de peinture et de sculpture. Vol. 2, Jean-Baptiste Oudry. Paris, 1854, p. 393.
Charles Blanc. Le trésor de la curiosité. Vol. 1, Paris, 1857, p. 168, lists the buyer at the La Live de Jully sale as Le Roy.
Jean Locquin. Catalogue raisonné de l'oeuvre de Jean-Baptiste Oudry, peintre du roi (1686–1755). Paris, 1912, p. 69, no. 347, lists this painting in the Salon of 1753.
Jean Vergnet-Ruiz inLes peintres français du XVIIIe siècle: Histoire des vies et catalogue des oeuvres. Ed. Louis Dimier. Vol. 2, Paris, 1930, p. 189, no. 13, lists the two pictures among lost works.
H[ans]. V[ollmer]. inAllgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler. Ed. Hans Vollmer. Vol. 26, Leipzig, 1932, p. 98.
Josephine L. Allen and Elizabeth E. Gardner. A Concise Catalogue of the European Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1954, p. 74, as "Ducks Resting in Sunshine".
Charles Sterling. The Metropolitan Museum of Art: A Catalogue of French Paintings. Vol. 1, XV–XVIII Centuries. Cambridge, Mass., 1955, pp. 131–33, ill., as pendants.
Jan Lauts. Die Jagd in der Kunst. Vol. 16, Jean-Baptiste Oudry. Hamburg, 1967, p. 26, pl. 11.
Barbara Scott. "La Live de Jully: Pioneer of Neo-Classicism." Apollo 97 (January 1973), p. 75, ill. p. 73.
Denys Sutton inParis—New York: A Continuing Romance. Exh. cat., Wildenstein. New York, 1977, p. 51, no. 45, fig. 34.
Hal N. Opperman. Jean-Baptiste Oudry. PhD diss., University of Chicago. New York, 1977, vol. 1, pp. 122, 205, 233, 500, 517, no. P380; vol. 2, fig. 356, includes this picture in a group he describes as a "barnyard genre".
Hal N. Opperman. J.-B. Oudry, 1686–1755. Exh. cat., Galeries nationales du Grand Palais. Paris, 1982, pp. 220–21, 255–56, no. 146, ill., separates this picture from its pendant, noting that the two were not identified as a pair in 1753; observes that they were part of a group of seven relatively small pictures shown which were for sale; suggests that this painting was a study from nature and notes that these are domesticated rather than wild ducks.
Colin B. Bailey inAnge-Laurent de La Live de Jully: A Facsimile Reprint of the "Catalogue historique" (1764) and the "Catalogue raisonné des tableaux" (March 5, 1770). New York, 1988, pp. XXIII, LVIII–LIX.
Katharine Baetjer. European Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art by Artists Born Before 1865: A Summary Catalogue. New York, 1995, p. 368, ill.
Colin B. Bailey. Patriotic Taste: Collecting Modern Art in Pre-Revolutionary Paris. New Haven, 2002, pp. 51–52, colorpl. 44.
Katharine Baetjer. "Buying Pictures for New York: The Founding Purchase of 1871." Metropolitan Museum Journal 39 (2004), pp. 172–73, 208, 245, appendix 1A no. 105, ill. p. 208, fig. 22.
Katharine Baetjer. French Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art from the Early Eighteenth Century through the Revolution. New York, 2019, pp. 94–96, no. 21, ill. (color).
Carol Santoleri in Katharine Baetjer. French Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art from the Early Eighteenth Century through the Revolution. New York, 2019, p. 31.
Colin B. Bailey. "Review of Baetjer 2019." Burlington Magazine 163 (May 2021), p. 470.
Collections Management Associate Bianca Ruthven highlights some of the recent discoveries being made about the European Paintings collection as artworks are being moved in preparation for the Skylights Project.
Volunteer Cataloger Nancy Rosin highlights a selection of rare, intricate valentines from the 18th and 19th centuries that are now part of The Met collection.
Jean-Baptiste Oudry (French, Paris 1686–1755 Beauvais)
1725
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