One can imagine this hunting scene taking place in the exotic East. This sculpture originally stood on a five-foot-high, gilt-bronze triumphal arch in the middle of the duke of Orléans's centerpiece. Three Indians, perched in the box-like howda, defend themselves from a tiger clawing its way up the elephant's back. The driver, riding on the elephant's neck, is about to strike the tiger with his barbed goad. A second tiger, already wounded by a spear, seizes one of the elephant's rear feet. Barye derived this subject from various sources, including a 17th-century Persian miniature. The inscription around the sculpture's base identifies the piece as having been cast by Honoré Gonon and his two sons using the more costly lost-wax process, rather than sand casting. Gonon was credited with reviving this technique, which faithfully replicates the details of the original model.

Scoring:

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Topics:
   + A Baltimorean in Paris: George A. Lucas, 1860-1909
   + Centrepiece (tableware)
   + Elephant goad
   + Exotic decorative artefacts
   + Exoticism in European culture
   + House of Demidov's collections

Download:

• Source: commons.wikimedia.org # 18843792
• Filename: Antoine-Louis Barye - "Surtout de table" - Tiger Hunt - Walters 27176 - Profile.jpg
• Thumbnail: 130x103 pixels - image/jpeg
• Preview: 640x509 pixels - image/jpeg
• Full size: 1800x1431 pixels - image/jpeg - 2,584,387 bytes

Licensing:

• Artist: Antoine-Louis Barye
• License: Public Domain

Media information:

• Original datetime: between 1834 and 1836
  date QS:P,+1834-00-00T00:00:00Z/8,P1319,+1834-00-00T00:00:00Z/9,P1326,+1836-00-00T00:00:00Z/9
• Upload datetime: 2012-03-26T00:30:44Z
• Uploader: User:File Upload Bot (Kaldari)
• SHA1: 57f0dcb0ee5bfc5b59acb6cd2eea4fd72386631d
• Refreshed: 2018-09-03 16:00:02 UTC

Technical Topics:
   + Artworks without Wikidata item
   + CC-BY-SA-3.0
   + CC-PD-Mark
   + GFDL