Courbet was an avid hunter and set this scene in the Jura Mountains in his native Franche-Comté region, near France’s border with Switzerland. The artist portrays himself as a huntsman, resting quietly against a tree, smoking a pipe. His gun hangs between him and his prize. Rendered with care and a delicate naturalism, Courbet’s roe deer attracted attention when he exhibited this painting at the Paris Salon of 1857; Théophile Gautier considered the animal “irreproachable…one of the best things in the exhibition,” noting veristic details like its thick, felted coat and moist, glistening nose. Yet a spatial disjointedness isolates the figures and animals from cohesively integrating, an effect caused in part by Courbet’s additive process. As he constructed this composition, Courbet enlarged the original canvas, joining additional pieces to accommodate the seated horn blower, hunting dogs, and surrounding forest foliage.

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