Cat, Weasel, and Rabbit

1836

This painting is based on a fable by Jean de La Fontaine in which a rabbit and a weasel ask a cat to settle an argument, only to be devoured by their would-be judge. Decamps made a number of paintings depicting scenes from La Fontaine’s fables, though in this case the narrative is less important than the naturalistic depiction of the animals and the forest setting.

Medium	Oil on canvas
Dimensions	9 1/2 x 13 1/2 in. (24.1 x 34.3 cm) Frame: 18 7/8 x 23 x 3 1/8 in. (47.9 x 58.4 x 7.9 cm)
Object Number	1955.699
Acquisition	Acquired by Sterling and Francine Clark, 1922
Status	Off View

Image Caption

Gabriel Alexandre Decamps, Cat, Weasel, and Rabbit, 1836, Oil on canvas. The Clark Art Institute, 1955.699.

Bibliography

Lees, Sarah, ed. Nineteenth-Century European Paintings at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute; New Haven and London: distributed by Yale University Press, 2012.

Provenance

Salomon Goldschmidt (until 1888, his sale, Georges Petit, Paris, 17 May 1888, no. 7, as Le Chat, Le Lapin et La Belette); George I. Seney, New York (until 1891, his sale, American Art Association, New York, 11–13 Feb. 1891, no. 237, sold to Knoedler); [Knoedler, New York, from 1891]; William Albert Slater, Washington (by 1894, d. 1919); [Knoedler, New York, sold to Clark, 1 June 1922]; Robert Sterling Clark (1922–55); Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1955.