Leopard 1741

Jean-Baptiste Oudry painted this leopard in oil on canvas sometime in the first half of the 18th century. Oudry was one of the great animaliers of his day, attached to the court of Louis XV, where the royal menagerie was a prime attraction, a spectacle of power and domination over nature. This image of a leopard allows us to think about the politics of imagery. It’s not just a neutral record, but a statement of human power. Oudry made his name as a painter of hunting scenes, images of aristocratic control over the natural world. Here, the leopard is shown not as a fearsome predator, but as an object of curiosity, its exotic coat rendered with almost scientific precision. It is easy to imagine that this leopard was painted in the menagerie, and we can see how these institutions shaped the production and reception of such images. To understand Oudry's painting better, one might examine the inventories of the menagerie, the records of the royal hunt, and the writings of natural historians of the period. All these resources would allow us to appreciate more fully the social and institutional context that gave rise to this compelling image.