Return From the Hunt
Framed: 19 5/8 x 16 1/4 inches (49.86 x 41.28 cm)
- 126
Salle des Dépêches du Figaro, Hôtel du Figaro, Paris, April 9–16, 1878, no. cat.
Exhibition of Modern French Paintings, Water Colors and Drawings: Including an Important Group of Drawings and Water Colors by Constantin Guys, C. W. Kraushaar Art Galleries, New York, October 5–31, 1931, no. 10, as Return from the Hunt.
Puvis de Chavannes and the Modern Tradition, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, October 24–November 30, 1975, no. 1, as Return from the Hunt.
This small, monochrome oil painting of hunters returning with their spoils replicates a scene from a large mural cycle of the Four Seasons. Pierre Puvis de Chavannes painted this cycle for the dining room of his family’s country house in central France.
Puvis was the leading French mural painter during the second half of the 1800s. He rendered simplified forms in pale, matte colors in imitation of fresco painting. His poetic, dream-like compositions were greatly admired by later artists, particularly Edgar Degas, Paul Gauguin, Georges Seurat, and Paul Signac.
Possibly given by the artist to Charles Ernest Rodolphe “Henri” Salem Lehmann (1814–1882), Paris, by June 13, 1866 [1];
Possibly returned by Lehmann to the artist, sometime after June 13, 1866 [2];
With F. and J. Tempelaere, Paris, stock no. 9601, probably around 1927–August 13, 1931 [3];
Purchased from Tempelaere by C. W. Kraushaar Art Galleries, Inc., New York, stock no. 26210, as Retour de la chasse au Sangulier [sic], August 13, 1931–May 5, 1933 [4];
Purchased from C. W. Kraushaar Art Galleries, Inc., by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1933.
Notes
[1] The painting may be one of two camaieux given to the artist’s friend and painter Henri Lehmann; both pictures were returned to Puvis by Lehmann around June 13, 1866. See letter from Lehmann to Puvis, June 13, 1866, private collection, France; cited in Aimée Brown Price, Pierre Puvis de Chavannes (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010), pp. 1:56, 191n236.
[2] The painting was probably restored by artist supplier H. Vieille et Troisgros between 1873 and 1878. See black, oval stamp on the panel verso: VIEILLE / MD. DE COULEURS / Rentoile et Restaure les Tableaux / Rue Laval 35, PARIS. Around this same time, from April 9 to 16, 1878, the painting appeared at the Salle des Dépêches du Figaro, the newspaper’s monthly exhibition, where it was for sale. See “Salle des Dépêches du Figaro,” Le Figaro (April 10, 1878): 3. It is not clear who owned the painting at this time.
[3] See stamp on the painting’s verso, upper left corner: TABLEAUX MODERNE/ F & J. TEMPELAERE/ 70 Bd Malesherbes/ PARIS. Tempelaere had their shop in the specified address from 1925 to 1939. See also a handwritten inscription on the far left of the verso: 9601. This is a Tempelaere stock number, as confirmed by Sylvie Brame, Galerie Brame et Lorenceau, Paris. Brame suggested the date of acquisition could be around 1927. See correspondence from Sylvie Brame, Galerie Brame et Lorenceau, to Danielle Hampton Cullen, the Nelson-Atkins, August 30, 2022, NAMA curatorial files.
[4] See two octagonal paper labels with red border on the panel’s verso: “26210/ [tsn?]” and “26210/ P. de Chavannes/ [tsn?].” See also Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, Kraushaar Galleries Records, 1885–2006, Series 6.4, Financial Records, 1885–1957, Purchase Journal, 1928–1940, box 74, folder 7; and Sales Journal, 1930–1943, box 76, folder 3, page 136.
“Salle des Dépêches du Figaro,” Le Figaro 24, no. 100 (April 10, 1878): 3, as Un Retour de Chasse au Sanglier.
Exhibition of Modern French Paintings, Water Colors and Drawings: Including an Important Group of Drawings and Water Colors by Constantin Guys, exh. cat. (New York: C. W. Kraushaar Art Galleries, 1931), unpaginated, as Return from the Hunt.
Katharine Grant Sterne, “On View in the New York Galleries,” Parnassus 3, no. 6 (October 1931): 6, as Return from the Hunt.
“Nelson Gallery of Art Special Number,” Art Digest 8, no. 5 (December 1, 1933): 22, as Return from the Hunt.
“The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art, Kansas City Special Number,” Art News 32, no. 10 (December 9, 1933): 28, as Return from the Hunt.
“$15,000,000 Nelson Art Gallery Opens: Gift of Kansas City Star Publisher,” Boston Evening Transcript 104, no. 288 (December 11, 1933): 11.
“Art Critics View Nelson Gallery,” New York Times 83, no. 27,718 (December 11, 1933): 24L.
“Nelson Gallery of Art Opens,” Editor and Publisher 66, no. 31 (December 16, 1933): 10.
The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Handbook of the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1933), 48, 138, (repro.), as Return from the Hunt.
A. J. Philpott, “Kansas City Now in Art Center Class: Nelson Gallery, Just Opened, Contains Remarkable Collection of Paintings, Both Foreign and American,” Boston Sunday Globe 125, no. 14 (January 14, 1934): 16.
“A Thrill to Art Expert: M. Jamot is Generous in his Praise of Nelson Gallery,” Kansas City Times 97, no. 247 (October 15, 1934): 7.
The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, The William Rockhill Nelson Collection, 2nd ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1941), 168, as Return from the Hunt.
Ross E. Taggart, ed., Handbook of the Collections in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 4th ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1959), 261, as Return from the Hunt.
Ross E. Taggart and George L. McKenna, eds., Handbook of the Collections in The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Kansas City, Missouri, vol. 1, Art of the Occident, 5th ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1973), 258, as Return from the Hunt.
Richard J. Wattenmaker, Puvis de Chavannes and the Modern Tradition, exh. cat. (Toronto: Art Gallery of Ontario, 1975), 42–43, (repro.), as Return from the Hunt.
Puvis de Chavannes: 1824–1898, exh. cat. (Paris: Éditions des musées nationaux, 1976), 55.
Marie-Christine Boucher, Palais des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris, Musée du Petit Palais: Catalogue des Dessins et Peintures de Puvis de Chavannes (Paris: Musée du Petit Palais, 1979), 14.
Puvis de Chavannes et le musée des Beaux-Arts de Marseille, exh. cat. (Marseille: Le musée, 1984), 52.
Puvis de Chavannes: Une voie singulière au siècle de l’Impressionnisme, exh. cat. (Amiens: Musée de Picardie, 2006), 99–100, as Retour de chasse.
Aimée Brown Price, Pierre Puvis de Chavannes (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010), no. 95, pp. 1:56, 191n236; 2:68–69, as Le Chasse au sanglier, Return from the Hunt, and The Boar Hunt.
Catherine Futter et al., Bloch Galleries: Highlights from the Collection of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2016), 48–49, (repro.), Return from the Hunt.
Aimée Brown Price, “Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, Return From the Hunt or The Boar Hunt, ca. 1859–62,” catalogue entry in French Paintings and Pastels, 1600–1945: The Collections of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, ed. Aimee Marcereau DeGalan (Kansas City: The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2025), https://doi.org/10.37764/78973.5.530.5407.
Aimée Brown Price, “Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, Return From the Hunt or The Boar Hunt, ca. 1859–62,” catalogue entry in French Paintings and Pastels, 1600–1945: The Collections of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, ed. Aimee Marcereau DeGalan (Kansas City: The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2025), https://doi.org/10.37764/78973.5.530.5407.
