Trophy of the Hunt

c. 1867

Trophy of the Hunt, c. 1867. Adolphe Braun (French, 1812–1877). Carbon print; image: 78 x 59.8 cm (30 11/16 x 23 9/16 in.); framed: 99.7 x 79.4 cm (39 1/4 x 31 1/4 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Andrew R. and Martha Holden Jennings Fund 1985.144 Braun intended his extraordinarily large prints as affordable middle-class alternatives to the painted hunt scenes adorning the country houses of the European upper classes. Here he shows an array of game birds prized for their flavor and the hunting challenge they offer. The 19th-century versions, created by photographers and even some Impressionist painters, evoke a leisurely rural pastime that was becoming rare in an increasingly urban, industrialized France. Adolphe Braun’s hunt still lifes continue a tradition popular in Northern European painting from the 17th century on.