Deer Running in the Snow

Dated 1856 and now in the Artizon Museum (formerly Bridgestone Museum of Art), Tokyo, this early winter animal painting shows Courbet developing his snow and deer subjects several years before the mature sequence of the 1860s. The Japanese collecting context is significant: the Artizon Museum's collection, assembled by Ishibashi Shōjirō of the Bridgestone Corporation, reflects systematic Japanese acquisition of major French nineteenth-century works that began in the Meiji era and accelerated in the postwar period. The running deer in snow is a compact composition that shows Courbet's early mastery of the winter animal subject, with the specific blue-shadow rendering of snow already evident.

The 1856 canvas shows Courbet's snow technique in early development, already using the blue shadow observation that would characterize his mature winter work. Running deer are captured in mid-gallop, legs extended in the suspended moment of airborne movement. The white snow ground dominates the lower two-thirds of the composition, the deer silhouetted against it with maximum contrast.