A Courbet for the Musée de la Chasse

12/3/25 - Acquisition - Paris, Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature - It took its place in the Cabinet du Loup on the first floor of the Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature at the beginning of March: Hunting Scene in the Snow is the first work by Courbet to join the Parisian institution. The previously unseen canvas, from a private collection in Besançon, was acquired through the Parisian art dealer Hubert Duchemin. As stated in the acquisition notice written by Rémy Provendier-Commenne [1], the canvas was presented in June 2024 to the expertise and authentication commission of the Institut Gustave Courbet, and was certified and added to the artist’s catalogue raisonné.

Gustave Courbet (1819-1877)
Hunting Scene in the Snow 1864
Oil on canvas - 46 x 55 cm
Paris, Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature
Photo: Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature

See the image in its page

This is all the more important given that our colleague Vincent Noce simultaneously revealed in La Gazette Drouot the case of a controversial new attribution to Courbet, that of a painting with a similar subject, Two Roe Deer in the Snow, of which around ten autograph versions are listed. He explains that the sale of the painting was, before its public auction in March 2022, orchestrated by the gallery owner Johann Naldi and the experts Thomas Morin-Williams and Niklaus Manuel Güdel, protagonists already mentioned in the problematic case of the Great Bathe (news item of 8/5/23). Like this painting, the Two Roe Deer in the Snow had been presented at the Courbet Museum in Ornans in the "Courbet/Hodler" exhibition (see the article) which was criticised for having included works of dubious attribution that were not recognised in the catalogue raisonné. In July 2023, the Courbet Committee, to which the winter landscape had not been submitted before its sale, concluded that it was not by the painter. The successful bidder has since requested the cancellation of the sale, which is currently…