Lying roe

Painted on panel in 1857 and now associated with the Munich Central Collecting Point (works displaced during World War II), this small-scale animal study of a lying roe deer demonstrates Courbet's parallel commitment to hunting subjects alongside his large-scale figure and landscape paintings. Deer and hunting scenes were deeply embedded in French provincial culture, particularly in the Franche-Comté where Courbet grew up hunting in the Jura forests. These animal subjects, typically intimate in scale, reflect a northern European tradition of wildlife painting that Courbet absorbed through Dutch and Flemish precedents. The Munich collection history signals that this painting passed through significant displacement during the twentieth century, common for European works in German collections during and after the Second World War.

Panel support gives a harder, less absorbent surface than canvas, allowing finer detail in the fur rendering and sharper delineation of the deer's form. The lying pose required attention to the animal's weight and its effect on the body — the way the haunches flatten and the legs fold. Warm brown fur is rendered with short, directional strokes following the direction of hair growth.