Surtout de table: Tiger Hunt

One can imagine this hunting scene taking place in the exotic East. This sculpture originally stood on a five-foot-high, gilt-bronze triumphal arch in the middle of the duke of Orléans's centerpiece. Three Indians, perched in the box-like howda, defend themselves from a tiger clawing its way up the elephant's back. The driver, riding on the elephant's neck, is about to strike the tiger with his barbed goad. A second tiger, already wounded by a spear, seizes one of the elephant's rear feet. Barye derived this subject from various sources, including a 17th-century Persian miniature. The inscription around the sculpture's base identifies the piece as having been cast by Honoré Gonon and his two sons using the more costly lost-wax process, rather than sand casting. Gonon was credited with reviving this technique, which faithfully replicates the details of the original model.