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Having never ventured outside France, Rousseau derived his jungle scenes from reading travel books and visiting the Paris botanical garden. He placed this imaginary scene of a tiger attacking a buffalo within a fantastic jungle environment in which botanical accuracy was of little importance (note the bananas growing upside down). Here, sharply outlined hothouse plants are enlarged to fearsome proportions. Rousseau was working on this painting while imprisoned for fraud in December 1907. Officials granted him an early release to finish it for exhibition at the Salon des Indépendants, where this major composition, one of the artist's largest and most important, appeared in March 1908. A self-taught artist and retired customs inspector, Rousseau was admired by Pablo Picasso and other avant-garde artists for his originality and the naïve purity of his vision.

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Details

  • Title: Fight between a Tiger and a Buffalo
  • Creator: Henri Rousseau (French, 1844–1910)
  • Date Created: 1908
  • Physical Dimensions: Framed: 183 x 203 x 4.5 cm (72 1/16 x 79 15/16 x 1 3/4 in.); Unframed: 170 x 189.5 cm (66 15/16 x 74 5/8 in.)
  • Provenance: Bought from the artist by Ambroise Vollard on 14 December 1909., Bought by John Quinn, New York, October 1923., Quinn estate from 1924., Mrs. John Alden Carpenter, Chicago, by 1926., Mrs. Patrick J. Hill, Washington D.C., [Pierre Matisse Gallery, New York, 1948], Purchased by the Cleveland Museum of Art on 14 June 1949.
  • Type: Painting
  • Rights: CC0
  • External Link: https://clevelandart.org/art/1949.186
  • Medium: oil on fabric
  • Inscriptions: Signed and dated lower right: Henri Rousseau / 1908
  • Fun Fact: Many of Rousseau's paintings depict wild animals and tropical jungles that might lead you to believe he was quite the adventurer. Despite the wild subject matter Rousseau never left France, but instead drew inspiration from visiting botanical gardens and reading travel books. Would you like to visit the fantastical world shown in this painting?
  • Department: Modern European Painting and Sculpture
  • Culture: France, late 19th-early 20th Century
  • Credit Line: Gift of the Hanna Fund
  • Collection: Mod Euro - Painting 1800-1960
  • Accession Number: 1949.186

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