Leopard Hunt

Jean Jacques Flipart; François Boucher

about 1767–1773

Red chalk, with graphite, Graphite

J. Paul Getty Museum

A chaotic scene depicts a leopard hunt with figures on horseback and on foot struggling with the animals amidst a rocky, mountainous landscape. In this refined red chalk drawing, a hunting party clashes with a pack of leopards before a background of palm trees. An orb nestled beside a fallen leopard in the foreground refers to a European legend associated with tiger hunting in faraway lands: a glass ball was supposedly used to confuse the tigress into mistaking her own reflection for one of her cubs. Flipart copied this composition from an oil painting, The Leopard Hunt (1736; Musée de Picardie, Amiens) by François Boucher, in preparation for a published print. Finely incised squaring lines cover the surface of the sheet; Flipart used this grid to scale down the painting’s