Hunter on Horseback

Hunter on Horseback

ca. 1864
Gustave Courbet
French, 1819–1877
Oil on canvas
47 x 37 1/2 in. (119.4 x 95.3 cm)

Hunter on Horseback was first shown at Gustave Courbet’s private exhibition of 1867, where it was catalogued under the heading “études et esquisses” (studies and sketches). The bearded hunter with tilted head echoes many of Courbet’s previous self-portraits, suggesting that the painting has autobiographical meaning. The distorted perspective, which makes the horse appear flat, results from an idiosyncratic, two-stage painting technique: first, Courbet painted the horse and hunter with minimal preliminary underdrawing and smooth brushstrokes; next, he rendered roughly the background landscape with a palette knife, sometimes even allowing the paint to overlap the edges of the figures.

1942.301
Yale University Art Gallery, Gift of J. Watson Webb, B.A. 1907, and Electra Havemeyer Webb