The Duck Hunt
1881
Medium
Pen and black ink
Dimensions
9 11/16 x 12 5/16 in. (24.6 x 31.3 cm)
Classification
Drawings
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
The J.B. Neumann Collection, Gift of Dr. Franz H. Hirschland, 1951
Accession Number
51.504.10
Tags
Art Historical Context
Welcome to *The Duck Hunt* (1881), a captivating pen and black ink drawing by French artist Rodolphe Bresdin (1822–1885), now housed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Department of Drawings and Prints. Measuring just 9 11/16 x 12 5/16 inches, this intimate work captures a tense moment in a dense forest where men pursue ducks amid tangled foliage and watery expanses. Bresdin, a visionary draftsman admired by contemporaries like Odilon Redon, infuses everyday hunting scenes with meticulous detail and a dreamlike intensity, evoking the Romantic tradition of nature's sublime power. Crafted with...
About the Artist
Rodolphe Bresdin · 1822–1885
Rodolphe Bresdin (1822–1885) was a visionary French draughtsman, engraver, and lithographer whose fantastical imagery captured the empathy of rural poverty and the wild exuberance of the imagination. Born on August 12, 1822, in Montrelais near Le Fresne-sur-Loire in Brittany, he grew up in the Breton countryside amid its bardic folklore traditions before a family dispute left him homeless in Paris...