Return from the Big Game Hunt

This is one of Benedito’s most famous compositions. Painted in the Sierra Morena in 1913, following his cosmopolitan European tour (1905-1911), it represents the painter’s return to a Spanish setting. Benedito had a special liking for this work, which he always kept in his possession. This was made clear in the etched copy that he made of it in the most well-known of his rare forays into the field of etching. When it was presented at the Salon des Artistes Français de París, in 1913, Guillaume Apollinaire, who wrote criticism for L´intransigeant, said of it: “Ceux qui aiment les vielles lithos en couleurs goûteront les Chasseurs de M. Benedito, qui doit beaucoup aimer le Freischutz1”. (Those who like the old lithographs in colour will enjoy the Hunters by M. Benedito, who must greatly like Der Freischutz.) It was made into a tapestry by the Real Fábrica de Tapices.