A Small Dog
  • Jean-Baptiste Oudry
  • Paris 1686 - 1755 Beauvais
  • A Small Dog, ca. 1710
  • Black chalk, partly heightened with white,
    on beige paper, a study of a nun on the verso
  • 188 × 220 mm

In 1719, the same year he was admitted to the Académie Royale in Paris, Oudry turned entirely from still life and portrait painting to the depiction of animals and hunting scenes. He soon mastered this subject matter with such convincing naturalism that he was appointed court painter to Louis XIV and head of the tapestry works in Beauvais. His paintings and drawings were sought-after collector’s items among the royal houses of Europe.

The study of a nun on the reverse of this sheet is related to the portrait of the Carmelite Marie Scolastique de Voyer d’Argenson, whom Oudry painted after 1710.1

  1. J. Cordey: Esquisses de portraits peints par J.-B. Oudry, Paris, 1929, no. 45 (ill.).