The Lion and Leopard Hunt

The Lion and Leopard Hunt (c. 1616-17) at the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden was one of the monumental hunt compositions commissioned by Maximilian I, Elector of Bavaria, and belongs to the same series as the Hippopotamus and Crocodile Hunt that Rubens produced for the Munich residence. The lion hunt had particular prestige in the hunting imagery of antiquity — lion hunting was a royal prerogative in ancient Assyria and Egypt, depicted on palace reliefs that Rubens knew from classical descriptions and from collections in Rome — and his treatment elevates the aristocratic sport into something with the grandeur of ancient royal ceremony. The combination of European horsemen with exotic African and Asian predators was deliberately spectacular: viewers who had never seen a lion or leopard outside a royal menagerie encountered the animals at their most dangerous and most physically imposing. Dresden's outstanding collection of Flemish and Dutch Baroque painting, assembled by the Electors of Saxony across the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, provides an ideal context for this hunting masterpiece alongside the collection's other major Rubens works.

The composition creates a vortex of violent action with horses, big cats, and hunters intertwined in combat. Rubens' powerful rendering of animal anatomy and his dynamic brushwork generate an overwhelming sense of physical energy and danger.

This hunting scene from 1617 has been conserved over the centuries. The canvas has been relined multiple times. The violent action and multiple interacting figures have been well-preserved. Some areas of the darker background have become more opaque as glazes have degraded.