Les Ours (The Bears)
1858/1874
Medium
etching in black on chine collé
Dimensions
sheet: 21.6 x 17.6 cm (8 1/2 x 6 15/16 in.) support: 38 x 26.4 cm (14 15/16 x 10 3/8 in.)
Classification
Department
CG-E
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
René Huyghe Collection
Accession Number
1994.42.2
Art Historical Context
Karl Bodmer’s *Les Ours (The Bears)* is a striking example of nineteenth-century printmaking, created between 1858 and 1874. A Swiss-French artist celebrated for his precise depictions of natural subjects, Bodmer employed the etching technique to capture the texture and presence of his animal subjects with remarkable clarity. The work’s intimate scale invites close viewing, allowing the fine lines of the etching to convey both the bears’ physical power and their quiet vitality. Printed in black on chine collé, the etching rests on a delicate sheet of Asian paper mounted to a larger support. T...
About the Artist
Karl Bodmer · 1809–1893
Johann Carl Bodmer was born on February 11, 1809, in Zürich, Switzerland, and received his training as a painter and engraver under his uncle Johann Jakob Meier, who had himself studied under the prominent engraver Heinrich Füssli. By the late 1820s Bodmer had relocated to Koblenz, Germany, where his work came to the attention of Prince Maximilian zu Wied-Neuwied, a German naturalist-explorer plan...