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The Getty
1200 Getty
Center Drive
Los Angeles
310-440-7300
The Getty Center
Oudry’s
Painted Menagerie
May 1-
September 2, 2007

Oudry’s Painted Menagerie, marks the culmination of an important international collaboration of conservators, scientists, curators, and art historians. The exhibition will showcase the restored Rhinoceros and Lion, and 10 other Oudry paintings — including an antelope, two leopards, a Mufflon sheep, several exotic fowl, and more than 20 animal drawings. Most of these portraits celebrate star specimens of the French king’s menagerie at Versailles.

A French painter and professor at the Royal Academy, Oudry (1686-1755) was among the foremost court painters of his day in France and Germany. Oudry’s highly finished, naturalistic animals have been called elegant, dignified, and noble.

“ … Oudry provides the kind of visual contact one longs for on a visit to the zoo, by giving us an intimate, tangible proximity to exotic, dangerous beasts that is generally blocked by fences, glass enclosures or crowds … ,” says Mary Morton, J. Paul Getty Museum’s associate curator of paintings and the exhibition’s organizing curator.

Oudry’s Rhinoceros is not just any rhinoceros. It is a life-sized portrait of Clara, a famous touring Indian rhinoceros who inspired a dedicated following throughout Europe in the mid-1700s. A Dutch sea captain imported Clara from India, and orchestrated a European tour for the high-profile animal that lasted 17 years. Oudry painted Clara in 1749 at the annual Saint-Germain fair in Paris. Curious people came in droves to see the wondrous rhinoceros which German viewers, charmed by her docile nature, named Miss Clara.

An engaging section of the Getty’s exhibition will be devoted to the subject of “Clara-mania” and will showcase paintings, a beaded textile, Meissen porcelain, medals, prints, drawings and objects inspired by the celebrity rhino.

Oudry sold Rhinoceros and Lion in 1750 as part of a suite of 13 animal paintings. The buyer was Oudry’s principal patron at the time, Christian Ludwig II, the German Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. After their purchase, the Duke shipped the paintings to his castle in northeast Germany — now a part of the Staatliches Museum Schwerin. In the middle of the 19th century, Rhinoceros and Lion were removed from their stretchers and placed in storage.

In 2001, Mark Leonard, head of paintings conservation at the Getty Museum, and Scott Schaefer, curator of paintings at the Getty Museum, were traveling through Germany to review potential conservation and restoration projects and learned of the Rhinoceros and Lion. The Getty team viewed the paintings and offered to bring them to Los Angeles for study and treatment.

The restoration process offered a truly original opportunity, as neither Rhinoceros nor Lion had been touched for more than 150 years. Both pictures were covered with heavy layers of grime and discolored varnish, making them very difficult to view. In addition, Lion was folded on its central seam, then rolled and crushed on one side, leading to cracks, creases, and numerous missing flakes of color. There were also structural repairs needed to mend numerous old tears and losses. However, the parts of the paintings that remained intact were in exquisite condition—the old varnish that appeared so dark and discolored had in fact offered protection to the original painted areas, and the paintings’ physical inaccessibility meant that no one had made any potentially misguided attempts to clean or restore them in the past.

“Our assignment was unique,” explains Leonard. “It is rare to receive the opportunity to work with paintings that have not undergone regular upkeep in more than a century. Now that the restoration process is complete, these two paintings are among the best preserved of all remaining Oudry works.”

The Paintings Conservation team followed a conservative approach, thinning the existing varnish and then adding a new layer of varnish in order to offer visual consistency with the remainder of the Museum Schwerin’s suite of Oudry paintings. Then, conservators retouched the many scattered minor damages. In addition, Getty conservator Tiarna Doherty painstakingly rewove shredded bits of canvas, using tweezers and a magnifying glass, a process that took 18 months.

The multi-year restoration process led to compelling discoveries. While a Professor of the Royal Academy under Louis XV, Oudry presented two lectures that included useful references to his painting techniques. These lectures provided helpful insights during the course of the restoration, and the information was supplemented by technical studies carried out by the scientists of Getty Conservation Institute, including pigment identification and binding media analysis.

“We’ve learned quite a lot about the materials and techniques that Oudry used,” says Leonard. “In restoring the two paintings, we put every effort into designing treatments that are as minimally invasive as possible.”

The Getty’s unique capabilities came into play in other aspects of the restoration as well. For example, in order to display and easily maneuver the life-size Rhinoceros, master craftsmen in the Museum’s workshops designed and created a series of temporary stretchers to allow for easy access to the front and back of the canvas for restoration. In addition, they created a giant metal easel to allow a single technician to turn the painting.

Jean-Baptiste Oudry, Head of a Frightened Fox, 1740s, Pastel on faded blue paper, 10-1/2 x 16-5/8, EX.2007.1.31, Staatliches Museum Schwerin.

Jean-Baptiste Oudry, Study of a Dog's Head, about 1740, Black and white chalk on faded blue paper, 12-7/16 x 18-5/8", EX.2007.1.41, Staatliches Museum Schwerin.

Jean-Baptiste Oudry, Circle of Pietro Longhi, Italian, about 1751. Oil on canvas, 21-7/8 x 28-3/8", EX.2007.1.48, Banca Intesa Collection, Vicenza.

Jean-Baptiste Oudry, Study of a Parrot, 1730s, Black and white chalk and pastel on blue paper, 10-11/16 x 11-5/16", EX.2007.1.32, Staatliches Museum Schweri.

Jean-Baptiste Oudry, Cassowary, 1745, Oil on canvas, 63-3/4 x 50-3/16", EX.2007.1.27, Staatliches Museum Schwerin.

Jean-Baptiste Oudry, Dead Crane, 1745, Oil on canvas, 63-3/4 x 50-3/16, Staatliches Museum Schwerin.

Simultaneously, the Getty Foundation funded two conservation projects at the Staatliches Museum Schwerin, allowing for conservation research on paintings in the Museum’s Old Master collection.

The exhibition was organized by the J. Paul Getty Museum in association with the
Staatliches Museum Schwerin and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.

“The inspiration for Oudry’s Painted Menagerie was born from the extraordinary
opportunity created through partnership and collaboration with other museums to conserve major works of art, provide our own staff with a unique professional experience and in the end benefit our audience by introducing works of art that would otherwise not be available for public view,” says Museum Director Michael Brand.

The conservation of Rhinoceros, Lion, and a third painting, Tiger, has been made possible by the J. Paul Getty Museum’s Painting Conservation Department, supported by the Paintings Conservation Council, a group that underwrites selected conservation partnerships. Additional support has been provided by the Friends of Heritage Preservation. Feldtmann Kulturell and FAMA Kunststiftung funded restoration of five other of the Oudry paintings.

Following the exhibition at the Getty, Oudry’s Painted Menagerie is on view at The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, October 7, 2007 to January 6, 2008. Following Houston, the paintings return to the Staatliches Museum Schwerin in Germany where they will be on view from April 4, 2008 to July 6, 2008.

French artist Jean-Baptiste Oudry (1686-1755) was among the most influential court painters of his day in France and Germany. Known as the foremost painter of animals and landscapes in the late 18th century, the Paris-born Oudry became a major authority in French visual culture under King Louis XV of France.

Oudry followed in the footsteps of his father, a painter and art dealer. He received his first serious training beginning at the age of 19 from the Flemish-trained portraitist Nicolas de Largillière (1656-1746), while attending classes in drawing at the Académie de St-Luc and the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture in Paris. Oudry’s mother was Nicole Papillon, whose family included the engraver Jean-Baptiste-Michel Papillon. He married Marie-Marguerite Froissé in 1709 and they had one son, Jacques-Charles (1720-1778), who also became a painter.

Oudry’s professional artistic career began with portrait commissions and still-life paintings. In 1719, he was accepted as a history painter by the French Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture, and became a professor there 20 years later. Beginning in 1720 and throughout the decade, Oudry focused on drawing and painting animals, hunt scenes, and landscapes. It was this work— including highly finished, naturalistic animals — that garnered the attention and admiration of Louis XV. After 1724, Oudry was producing commissions of the royal hunt for the King, often in his presence at Versailles. He was also sought after for his paintings and decorative pieces by Czar Peter the Great of Russia, the Queen of Sweden, the King of Denmark, and the Duke of Mecklenburg at Schwerin. Oudry’s privileged position with Louis XV made him the most visible artist at the Salon of 1725, and he was given a solo exhibition at Versailles in 1726.

Oudry also enjoyed great success as a designer of tapestries. In 1734, he was named director of Beauvais Tapestry Works, where he produced the world-famous illustrations to La Fontaine's Fables. Two years later, he became director of Gobelins manufactory and designed the tapestry The Hunt of Louis XV. His position supervising all tapestry production gave him considerable influence on French decorative arts of the period.

Moving effortlessly among painting, tapestry, engraving, and drawing was a central part of Oudry’s artistic practice, and he was among the most prolific draftsmen of his age. Besides sketching the live animals of the King’s menagerie, Oudry also copied animal motifs by other artists and made drawings after his own paintings. The majority of his drawings remained in his studio, serving as study material, records of his compositions, and references when preparing other works. As a group, Oudry’s animal drawings demonstrate versatility as a draftsman and ability to compose active and expressive animals.

One of Oudry’s best known paintings is the 1749 life-sized portrait of the famous female Indian rhinoceros, known as Clara, who toured Europe and inspired a dedicated following in the mid-1700s. Clara spent five months in Paris, where she created a sensation: letters, poems, and songs were written. It was at the Saint-Germain fair that he painted Rhinoceros.

Oudry painted little after suffering a stroke in 1754 and died at Beauvais in 1755. His talented legacy is revitalized and on view in Oudry’s Painted Menagerie, a major exhibition of his life-sized paintings of a rhinoceros, lion, antelope, a leopard, and leopardess, other animals, and exotic fowl from Staatliches Museum Schwerin. Several of his paintings, also displayed in this exhibition, formed the basis for engravings for the Comte de Buffon’s 44 volume Historie Naturelle, published from 1749-1804.