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LE CLAIRE
SEIT 1982
KUNST
ELBCHAUSSEE 386 ∙ 22609 HAMBURG ∙ TELEFON: +49 (0)40 881 06 46 ∙ FAX: +49 (0)40 880 46 12
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STEUERNUMMER 42/040/02717 ∙ UST.-ID.-NR.: DE 118 141 308
LE CLAIRE
SEIT 1982
KUNST
NICOLAS HUET II
1770 - Paris - 1828/30
La Lionne d’Afrique
Watercolour and gouache over engraving in brown on paper, mounted on cardboard.
Signed and dated lower left: Hüet fils 1808.
271 x 377 mm (350 x 440 mm)
PROVENANCE: Private collection, France
Nicolas Huet, the son of Jean-Baptiste-Marie Huet the Elder, was the official painter for Empress
Josephine’s Musée d’Histore Naturelle et de la Ménagerie. He specialized in painting, drawing and
engraving animals and plants.
Empress Josephine had collected a great variety of exotic animals and plants for her Ménagerie at
Malmaison. Some animals, like the group of lions, that were given by the bey of Tunis or were
brought back from scientific expeditions, were considered too ferocious for Malmaison and its
cheerful and placid atmosphere and were kept in the Museum d’histoire Naturelle. Thanks to the
extraordinary documenting of all the animals we are well informed about their daily life and
circumstances. Among the group of lionesses there was only one named La lionne Mère nommée Marquette.
Marquette was captured near Constantine (Algeria), together with a male in 1795. She is obviously
the one portrayed in the present work with one of her many offsprings (she had bred three times).1
The engraving was excuted by Lambert Frères after the drawing by Nicolas Huet, who obviously
coloured it himself in the same year, according to his signature. The print bears a legend and
inscription in the lower margin below the image that has been cut away from the present sheet,
probably when it was mounted on cardboard for the colouring. 2 The colouring is executed with
great finesse. The brown of the underlying engraving is very subtle and might very easily be mistaken
as an outline drawing executed with a fine pen in sepia. The Bibliothèque Nationale owns a version
printed in black (fig.1).
1
Archives du Muséum national d’histoire naturelle, Paris, Observations particulières sur les animaux de la menagerie, an XII (1804)1822, p.40 ff.
2
The print bears several inscriptions that have been cut away: La Lionne d’Afrique / Dessiné d’après Nature par Huët fils Peintre de la
Menagerie de sa Majesté / l’Imperatrice Reine et du Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle / Gravé par Lambert Frères / A Paris chez Basset Md d Estampes
et Fabricant de Papuiers peihnts. Rue St Jacques au cooin de celle des Mathurins N° 64. / Déposé a la Bibliotheque Impériale.
ELBCHAUSSEE 386 ∙ 22609 HAMBURG ∙ TELEFON: +49 (0)40 881 06 46 ∙ FAX: +49 (0)40 880 46 12
[email protected] ∙ WWW.LECLAIRE-KUNST.DE
HYPOVEREINSBANK HAMBURG ∙ BLZ: 200 300 00 ∙ KTO: 222 5464
SWIFT (BIC): HYVEDEMM300 ∙ IBAN: DE88 200 3000 0000 222 5464
STEUERNUMMER 42/040/02717 ∙ UST.-ID.-NR.: DE 118 141 308
LE CLAIRE
SEIT 1982
KUNST
Fig.1: La Lionne d’Afrique. Engraving and Roulette,
Bibliothèque Nationale [Inv.-no.: BnF-Est Dc 15.b]
ELBCHAUSSEE 386 ∙ 22609 HAMBURG ∙ TELEFON: +49 (0)40 881 06 46 ∙ FAX: +49 (0)40 880 46 12
[email protected] ∙ WWW.LECLAIRE-KUNST.DE
HYPOVEREINSBANK HAMBURG ∙ BLZ: 200 300 00 ∙ KTO: 222 5464
SWIFT (BIC): HYVEDEMM300 ∙ IBAN: DE88 200 3000 0000 222 5464
STEUERNUMMER 42/040/02717 ∙ UST.-ID.-NR.: DE 118 141 308