Rolling Tiger (Tigre se roulant)

ca. 1840

The sculptor, painter, and printmaker Antoine-Louis Barye specialized in naturalistic depictions of fierce beasts, which appealed to the Romantic tastes of mid-nineteenth-century French audiences. This watercolor is based on his visits to the menagerie in the Jardin des Plantes in Paris, and may be an elaborated version of a study made on the spot.

The particular texture of this work indicates that it might be a “transfer watercolor,” a kind of print process created by pressing a still-wet watercolor against a blank sheet of damp paper to make another impression.