"Surtout de table": Python Killing a Gnu

Description Barye was fascinated by large snakes and portrayed them in sculptures and paintings. Two Javanese pythons were sent to the Jardin des Plantes in 1838. In this sculpture, a python has entwined itself around the body of a gnu, an African antelope also known as a wildebeest. This sculpture is one of four animal combats that originally stood at the base of the triumphal arch supporting the "Tiger Hunt." Two of the other combats, "Eagle Attacking a Wounded Ibex" and "Lion Attacking a Boar," are now in the Louvre Museum; the fourth, "Tiger Devouring a Large Antelope," belongs to the Detroit Institute of Arts.

Conservation

Date	Description	Narrative
10/15/1974	Treatment	other
12/12/1979	Examination	examined for loan

Exhibitions

• The Romantics to Rodin: French Nineteenth Century Sculpture from North American Collections. Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles; Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis; The Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit; Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis. 1980-1981.
• Un âge d'or des arts décoratifs: 1814-1848. Galeries nationales du Grand Palais, Paris. 1991.
• Untamed: The Art of Antoine-Louis Barye. The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore; Philbrook Museum of Art, Tulsa; The Henry Morrison Flagler Museum, Palm Beach. 2007-2008.

Provenance Duc d'Orléans, 1834, by commission; duchesse d'Orléans Sale, Paris, January 18-20, 1853, no. 2; Alphonse de Hautpoul; Maurice Mallet; Henry Walters, Baltimore, November 19, 1906, by purchase [George A. Lucas as agent]; Walters Art Museum, 1931, by bequest.

Inscriptions [Signature] Cast through from model: BARYE.

Credit Acquired by Henry Walters, 1906