curatorial

Return from the Hunt or The Boar Hunt¹Various versions of this painting have been published with somewhat differing titles, even to including or eliminating the French article “le” or “la.” The Musée d’Orsay calls the Salon version of 1859, now in Marseilles, Retour de Chasse (Return from the Hunt), but their own catalogue, Puvis de Chavannes et le musée des Beaux-Arts de Marseille (Marseille: Musée des Beaux-Arts, 1984), no. 1, p. 52, titles the work Le Retour de la chasse and The Boar Hunt (La Chasse au Sanglier). Following previously published sources, Aimée Brown Price, Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, vol. 2, A Catalogue Raisonné of the Painted Work (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010), no. 95, pp. 68–69, lists the Nelson-Atkins painting as La Chasse au sanglier/ Return from the Hunt or The Boar Hunt. by Pierre Puvis de Chavannes dates from the artist’s first period of activity but already displays the pictorial inventiveness of his mature paintings. Yet unlike his later work, with which he gained international fame in the later nineteenth century, it is neither classicizing in its imagery, a mode most often associated with his public murals, nor does it share the melancholia and decidedly idiosyncratic figural stylizations of his more personal easel paintings (such as The Poor Fisherman, 1881; Musée d’Orsay, Paris).

Return from the Hunt depicts men riding and striding into the compositional space, the first of whom trumpets their success on a ram’s horn while two others carry a deer carcass suspended from a pole, the excitement intensified by yapping dogs. At center, on horseback, a rider in a leopard skin (since antiquity, an apt outfit in art for the hunt), triumphantly sports a boar’s head high atop a stake (possibly his spear). Somewhat more faintly, in the middle distance, more men on horseback bring up the rear. A sense of energy emanates from the poses, the sense of movement, and the drapery that (for propriety’s sake) swirls about the lower limbs of two virtually unclad figures. Even in this early painting, the carefully calibrated construction of figures and spaces that would characterize Puvis’s later work is evident. Here are the beginnings of the coordinated forms, repeated rhythms, and rhyming limbs that lock the elements into an ineluctable compositional whole. A variant version of a subject Puvis had painted earlier, this work, with its adventurous elliptical format and essentially monochromatic blue tonalities, also marks his transition to developing an aesthetic for décorations—of which murals comprise one category—compositions designed to enhance architecture and subsume themselves to a wall. Indeed, décorations (not mere decorations, as the English cognate might suggest) engendered simplified, flattened, transmogrified, and—though not to beg the question—“artful” representations of both the actual and fanciful. Décorations provided an avenue to an aesthetic that differed strikingly from that of traditional easel painting, prefiguring modernism as we know it in Western art.

Fig. 1. Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, The Four Seasons, 1854–55, oil on canvas, decoration of the dining room at Le Château du Brouchy

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Fig. 2. Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, Esau’s Return from the Hunt or Winter, 1854–55, oil on canvas, 98 x 87 1/2 in. (249 x 222.3 xm), private collection, Le Brouchy, France

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Fig. 3. Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, Return from the Hunt, 1859, oil on canvas, 155 1/2 x 116 1/8 in. (395 x 295 cm), Musée des Beaux-Arts, Marseille, inv. 214

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Fig. 4. Attributed to Félix Nadar (Gaspard Félix Tournachon, 1820–1910), after Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, caricature of Return from the Hunt, 1859, reproduced in Journal pour Rire: Le Journal Amusant, no. 185 (July 16, 1859): 5, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris

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Fig. 5. Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, Return from the Hunt, etching on laid paper, second and last state, 12 1/2 x 9 1/2 in. (31.7 x 24.2 cm), Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris, département des Estampes et photographie, DC-303 (H)-FOL

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Striking in the Nelson-Atkins Return from the Hunt, even given its several iterations discussed here, are the changed pictorial elements in color, format, and scale. Puvis retained the basic, well-received image but presented it in overall blue tonalities,¹²I have previously written about Puvis’s blue tonalities, notably in Fantasy (La Fantaisie) (1866; Ohara Museum, Kurashiki, Japan) and Sleep (Le Sommeil) (1867; Musee des Beaux-Arts, Lille). Price, Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, plates 63, 64, 72, pp. 1:59–60, 62, and nos. 140 and 151, pp. 2:112–15, 125–28. what the French call camaïeux. While contrasting colors differentiate forms and make each more distinct, a single color is a unifying feature, particularly important in this far-smaller panel. The shades of pigment need only be subtly varied to properly illuminate, bring together, and yet clarify diverse elements.

Whether the present painting is the same work given to Puvis’s friend Henri Lehmann (1814–1882)—then a famous painter and member of the Beaux-Arts establishment—and subsequently returned to Puvis, accompanied by a letter of thanks and a reference to not one, but two camaïeux, needs further documentation.¹³On their association and exchanges, see Price, Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, 1:56, 191n236; and 2:76n3. Puvis was, by 1864, to execute four other elliptical, monochromatic paintings—one pair (with a horizontal orientation) in rosy pinks with a turquoise-cerulean background (akin to the tones in the Nelson-Atkins painting), and another two wholly in rosé tones—all as wall paintings for the Amiens museum (now the Musée de Picardie).¹⁴Price, Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, nos. 115–16, 123–24, pp. 2:68–69. These works may have been prompted by Puvis’s essaying of that format and limited colors in his Nelson-Atkins experiment.¹⁵It is difficult to say with any certainty, however, that the signature—in block letters, unlike those in other works of the first two decades of Puvis’s production (though some of Puvis’s murals have uppercase letters that are more rectilinear)—are by him. Moreover, the letters seem to have been painted over several times and introduced with some insistence. That Puvis was systematic in his methods and deliberate in his choices tends, therefore, to argue for a possible later date within the range proposed for the Nelson-Atkins painting, for it might well have served as a prelude to the four Amiens works, a tantalizing yet logical supposition. Arguing against a date of 1860–61, however, is the fact that the artist was readying two mural-size canvases, Concordia and Bellum, for exhibition at the Salon of 1861,¹⁶Price, Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, nos. 104, 105, pp. 1:38–44 and passim, plates 46–47. and he must have been preoccupied with that task. It well may be, then, that it was around 1862 that he revisited his Return from the Hunt subject matter and created the painting under discussion here.

Return from the Hunt was acquired by the Nelson-Atkins in 1933, shortly before the museum’s heralded opening. That a work by the much-vaunted and arguably most internationally famous French artist of the later nineteenth century (revered in the United States for his extensive late murals at the Boston Public Library) was among its treasures was recognized in multiple newspaper stories.¹⁷“Nelson Gallery of Art Special Number,” Art Digest (December 1, 1933): 22; “$15,000,000 Nelson Art Gallery Opens: Gift of Kansas City Star Publisher,” Boston Evening Transcript, December 11, 1933, 11; “Art Critics View Nelson Gallery,” New York Times, December 11, 1933, 24L; “Nelson Gallery of Art Opens,” Editor and Publisher, December 16, 1933, 10; A. J. Philpott, “Kansas City Now in Art Center Class: Nelson Gallery, Just Opened, Contains Remarkable Collection of Paintings, Both Foreign and American,” Boston Sunday Globe, January 14, 1934, 16; “A Thrill to Art Expert: M. Jamot is Generous in his Praise of Nelson Gallery,” Kansas City Times, October 15, 1934, 7.

Notes

1. Various versions of this painting have been published with somewhat differing titles, even to including or eliminating the French article “le” or “la.” The Musée d’Orsay calls the Salon version of 1859, now in Marseilles, Retour de Chasse (Return from the Hunt), but their own catalogue, Puvis de Chavannes et le musée des Beaux-Arts de Marseille (Marseille: Musée des Beaux-Arts, 1984), no. 1, p. 52, titles the work Le Retour de la chasse and The Boar Hunt (La Chasse au Sanglier). Following previously published sources, Aimée Brown Price, Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, vol. 2, A Catalogue Raisonné of the Painted Work (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010), no. 95, pp. 68–69, lists the Nelson-Atkins painting as La Chasse au sanglier/ Return from the Hunt or The Boar Hunt.

2. For a more extensive discussion of the Le Brouchy murals and reproductions, see Price, Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, nos. 48–61, pp. 1:36; 2:34–43. Since 1992, Le Brouchy has been classified as a Monument Historique; see https://association-dartagnan.fr/index.php/publications/15-traditions-bressanes/286-le-chateau-du-brouchy (with several errors, including that Puvis’s paintings there are “fresques” or frescoes) and https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ch%C3%A2teau_du_Brouchy.

3. The dimensions of the Le Brouchy mural are 98 x 87 1/2 in. (249 x 222.3 cm). For Puvis’s preliminary oil sketch of 1854, which is 21 7/8 x 18 7/8 in. (55.5 x 48 cm.), see Price, Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, no. 51, pp. 1:36, 57, and 2:35.

4. In biblical Hebrew, “game” is not what Isaac sought, but “delicacies.” Game, the result of the hunt, is how the term has been translated into English—or “gibier” in French (undoubtedly Puvis’s source). Here this is represented by venison and boar, although in fact boar would have been forbidden food for the family of this Hebrew patriarch.

5. Price, Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, no. 94, pp. 2:67–8, and for further discussion.

6. Price, Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, 67 (see under “Sources and Literature”). See also Théophile Gautier, “Exposition de 1859,” Moniteur Universel (June 23, 1859): 721–22. Puvis’s entries to the Salon had been rejected since 1850.

7. Musée des Beaux Arts, Marseilles, BA103; for an image, see the photo agency of the Réunion des Musées Nationaux et du Grand Palais: https://www.photo.rmn.fr/archive/15-626150-2C6NU0AMVYQ7G.html.

8. The caption of this caricature reads: “Je regrette vivement que ce second numéro du Salon ne soit pas enluminé comme le premier cela m’aurait permis de donner un peu de couleur au RETOUR DE CHASSE, où M. Puvis de Chavannes n’en a pas mis du tout” (I deeply regret that this second issue of the Salon is not illuminated like the first, which would have allowed me to add a little color to THE RETURN FROM THE HUNT, where Mr. Puvis de Chavannes did not add any at all). My thanks for the superb documentation files at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art for these references and to the staff there for bringing them to my attention.

9. Indeed, Ian Kennedy, the former Louis L. and Adelaide C. Ward Curator of European painting and sculpture, noting just those elements that had been satirized, inquired whether the Nelson-­Atkins Return from the Hunt might not be a copy, because it was “too wooden and stiff.” Ian Kennedy to the author, November 10, 2004, NAMA curatorial files.

10. See the superb analysis by Douglas Druick in Puvis de Chavannes, 1824–1898, exh. cat. (Paris: Éditions des musées nationaux, 1976), no. 33, p. 53–55; also Douglas W. Druick, “Puvis and the Printed Image, 1862–1898,” Nouvelles de l’estampe (1977): 27–35. Druick wonders whether Félix Braquemond might have had a hand in producing the print.

11. Bruno Foucart, in his entry on the print in Puvis de Chavannes: Une voie singulière au siècle de l’Impressionnisme, exh. cat. (Amiens: Musée de Picardie, 2006), no. 65, p. 100, relies heavily on and quotes Druick, “Puvis and the Printed Image,” 28–29, at length.

12. I have previously written about Puvis’s blue tonalities, notably in Fantasy (La Fantaisie) (1866; Ohara Museum, Kurashiki, Japan) and Sleep (Le Sommeil) (1867; Musee des Beaux-Arts, Lille). Price, Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, plates 63, 64, 72, pp. 1:59–60, 62, and nos. 140 and 151, pp. 2:112–15, 125–28.

13. On their association and exchanges, see Price, Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, 1:56, 191n236; and 2:76n3.

14. Price, Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, nos. 115–16, 123–24, pp. 2:68–69.

15. It is difficult to say with any certainty, however, that the signature—in block letters, unlike those in other works of the first two decades of Puvis’s production (though some of Puvis’s murals have uppercase letters that are more rectilinear)—are by him. Moreover, the letters seem to have been painted over several times and introduced with some insistence.

16. Price, Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, nos. 104, 105, pp. 1:38–44 and passim, plates 46–47.

17. “Nelson Gallery of Art Special Number,” Art Digest (December 1, 1933): 22; “$15,000,000 Nelson Art Gallery Opens: Gift of Kansas City Star Publisher,” Boston Evening Transcript, December 11, 1933, 11; “Art Critics View Nelson Gallery,” New York Times, December 11, 1933, 24L; “Nelson Gallery of Art Opens,” Editor and Publisher, December 16, 1933, 10; A. J. Philpott, “Kansas City Now in Art Center Class: Nelson Gallery, Just Opened, Contains Remarkable Collection of Paintings, Both Foreign and American,” Boston Sunday Globe, January 14, 1934, 16; “A Thrill to Art Expert: M. Jamot is Generous in his Praise of Nelson Gallery,” Kansas City Times, October 15, 1934, 7.

conservation

Puvis de Chavannes executed Return from the Hunt on a 1-centimeter thick panel that is marked on the reverse with two stenciled stampssupplier mark: A mark (ink stamp, brand, impression, etc.), often present on the reverse of canvas, panel, or other support, signifying the company that sold or prepared the support. As these companies sometimes performed framing and restorations, these marks could also reflect these services. See also canvas stamp.: Vieille¹The Vieille stamp is oriented 180 degrees from the painting’s orientation and reads: “VIEILLE / M^[D]DE COULEURS / Rentoile et Restaure les Tableaux / Rue Laval 35, PARIS”. and F. and J. Tempelaëre²The Tempelaëre stamp is located on the upper left of the panel and reads: “TABLEAUX MODERNES / F & J. TEMPELAERE / 70 B^[d] Malesherbes / PARIS”. (Fig. 6). The latter stamp, placed in the same orientation as the painting, relates to an art dealer operating at 70 Boulevard de Malesherbes in Paris in 1926.³Pascal Labreuche, Guide Labreuche: Le guide des fournisseurs de matériel pour artistes, France, XVIIIe–XXe siècles, 2014, https://www.guide-labreuche.com/collection/businesses//businesses/tempelaere-f-et-j.^{, 4}Tempelaëre’s stock number for the painting, “9601” is handwritten on the panel reverse. See the accompanying provenance section by Danielle Hampton Cullen in this catalogue. Documentary evidence suggests that the Vieille stamp was applied between 1873–78,⁵Labreuche, Guide Labreuche, https://www.guide-labreuche.com/collection/commerces/vieille. which may signify that an early restoration occurred. Alternatively, the stamp could indicate the suppliercolor merchant: Also called artist suppliers. Color merchants prepared materials for artists. This tradition dates back to the Medieval period, but the industrialization of the nineteenth century increased their commerce. It was during this time that ready-made paints in tubes, commercially prepared canvases, and standard-format supports were available to artists for sale through these suppliers. It is sometimes possible to identify the supplier from stamps or labels found on the reverse of the artwork. See also canvas stamp, supplier mark, and color merchant. who sold Puvis the panel, though this scenario would push the execution date of the painting (ca. 1859–62) to 1873 or later. While later dates have been discussed for the Nelson-Atkins painting,⁶See accompanying catalogue essay by Aimée Brown Price. Bruno Foucart proposed that Puvis may have been inspired by the flattened simplicity of the 1862 etching (Fig. 5) and created the Nelson-Atkins painting subsequent to the print. See Bruno Foucart in his entry on the print in Puvis de Chavannes: Une voie singulière au siècle de l’Impressionnisme, exh. cat. (Amiens: Musée de Picardie, 2006), no. 65, p. 100.^{, 7}In 1864, Puvis was painting elliptical, monochromatic pairs of paintings (La Guerre and L’Abondance, Musee de Picardie, Amiens, France), and in later years, he produced allegorical figures with blue tonalities: La Fantaisie (1866; Ohara Museum, Kurashiki, Japan) and Sleep (Le Sommeil) (1867; Musee des Beaux-Arts, Lille). See the accompanying catalogue essay by Brown Price. provenance research suggests that Return from the Hunt may have been in the hands of fellow painter Henri Lehmann (1814–82) and then returned to Puvis in 1866.⁸See the provenance section by Hampton Cullen and catalogue essay by Brown Price.

Fig. 6. Panel reverse of Return from the Hunt (ca. 1859–62), showing two supplier stamps

fullscreen Fig. 6. Panel reverse of Return from the Hunt (ca. 1859–62), showing two supplier stamps

Fig. 7. Overall photograph of Return from the Hunt (ca. 1859–62)

fullscreen Fig. 7. Overall photograph of Return from the Hunt (ca. 1859–62)

The single-panel support is estimated to be mahogany with a vertical grain and beveled edges on the verso. The panel was commercially prepared with an off-white, even ground layerground layer: An opaque preparatory layer applied to the support, either commercially or by the artist, to prevent absorption of the paint into the canvas or panel. See also priming layer..⁹X-ray fluorescence spectrometry (XRF) confirmed the presence of calcium, strontium, and barium in the ground layer. Strontium is often a natural minor component of either barite or calcite, while the barite can be a white pigment in its own right in nineteenth-century works. See correspondence from John Twilley, Nelson-Atkins science advisor, to Mary Schafer, January 13, 2026, NAMA conservation file, 33-149. Puvis first marked this surface with a rectangular border using graphite. The width of the left border measures 6 millimeters less than the others, which positioned the border slightly left of center (Fig. 7).¹⁰White paint or ground is visible on the panel edges, and there is no evidence that the panel was ever cut down. Within this rectangle, he established an elliptical boundary with red drawing media, such as red chalk, crayon, or possibly Conté, and appears to have later strengthened this edge with black ink (Fig. 8).

Fig. 8. Photomicrograph of the lower right edge of Return from the Hunt (ca. 1859–62), revealing two lines that were used to mark the elliptical boundary

fullscreen Fig. 8. Photomicrograph of the lower right edge of Return from the Hunt (ca. 1859–62), revealing two lines that were used to mark the elliptical boundary

Fig. 9. False-color infrared image with wavelengths of 1436nm assigned to red, 1726nm assigned to green, and 2138nm assigned to blue, Return from the Hunt (ca. 1859–62)

fullscreen Fig. 9. False-color infrared image with wavelengths of 1436nm assigned to red, 1726nm assigned to green, and 2138nm assigned to blue, Return from the Hunt (ca. 1859–62)

Fig. 10. Detail of false-color infrared image with wavelengths of 1436nm assigned to red, 1726nm assigned to green, and 2138nm assigned to blue, Return from the Hunt (ca. 1859–62). Fine lines mark the contours of forms and define areas of shadow, often with hatching lines (chest of horse).

fullscreen Fig. 10. Detail of false-color infrared image with wavelengths of 1436nm assigned to red, 1726nm assigned to green, and 2138nm assigned to blue, Return from the Hunt (ca. 1859–62). Fine lines mark the contours of forms and define areas of shadow, often with hatching lines (chest of horse).

Puvis produced countless preparatory studies that focused on individual elements as well as the overall arrangement, and he regarded this time-intensive process as the means to achieve compositional order and harmony: “Prepare your painting carefully, he told one of his students, and [then you can] work on it while reading your newspaper.”¹¹Charles Sterling and Margaretta M. Salinger, French Paintings: A Catalogue of the Collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (Greenwich, CT: New York Graphic Society, 1966), 2:225.^{, 12}“Préparez soigneusement votre tableau, disait-il à un de ses élèves, et exécutez-le en lisant votre journal.” All translations by the author unless otherwise noted. See François Fosca, “Les Salons de 1924,” Gazette des Beaux-Arts 9, no. 5 (June 1924): 322–23. Although many of the artist’s drawings are gridded for transfer, no linear framework was detected beneath the Nelson-Atkins painting. Instead, hyperspectral imaging (HSI)hyperspectral imaging (HSI); sometimes called reflectance imaging spectroscopy (RIS): Conventional cameras working within the range of human vision, between ultraviolet and infrared, divide the light into three “bands” corresponding to the colors red, green, and blue, giving three brightness values per point (pixel). Hyperspectral cameras divide the range into a much larger number of subdivisions, yielding a block of data in which each point is represented by scores or even hundreds of brightness values at wavelengths spaced as little as 5nm (nanometers) apart. The result is a spectrum for each point in the image. The HySpex hyperspectral camera operates in the region from 950nm to 2500nm, where diagnostic information related to the composition of the paints can be extracted by mathematical methods. Coupled with complementary information provided by elemental analysis, this may assist in identifying the pigments present. reveals a faint but comprehensive underdrawing of fine lines that mark the contours of forms and define areas shadow, often with hatching lines (Figs. 9 and 10). Based on the infrared response, these fine lines seem to correlate to the red drawing medium (Fig. 11).¹³The underdrawing materials beneath various parts of Death and the Maidens (1872; Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, MA) were identified as “possibly ink and red pencil lines.” See the technical report by Sandra L. Webber in Nineteenth-Century European Paintings at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2012), 2:616. Under the stereomicroscope, black ink is visible between painted elements and suggests that Puvis strengthened the sketch prior to painting, much like the elliptical edge. Thicker graphite lines mark the distant mountains and upper trees, many of which continue beyond the ellipse. Additionally, dilute gray washes at the outer edges of the ellipse suggest that Puvis further modulated areas of shadow as part of his preparatory process.

Fig. 11. Photomicrograph of the left figure’s foot, extending beyond the edge of the ellipse, Return from the Hunt (ca. 1859–62)

fullscreen Fig. 11. Photomicrograph of the left figure’s foot, extending beyond the edge of the ellipse, Return from the Hunt (ca. 1859–62)

Fig. 12. Raking illumination of Return from the Hunt (ca. 1859–62), showing the textures of the ground, tack holes (upper corners), and paint. The dotted lines mark the equivalent distance of the panel, taking into account a mismeasurement by the artist, while the other lines mark the centers of the ellipse and connect with holes made into the ground and the dog’s muzzle.

fullscreen Fig. 12. Raking illumination of Return from the Hunt (ca. 1859–62), showing the textures of the ground, tack holes (upper corners), and paint. The dotted lines mark the equivalent distance of the panel, taking into account a mismeasurement by the artist, while the other lines mark the centers of the ellipse and connect with holes made into the ground and the dog’s muzzle.

The diagram in Figure 12 marks the centers of the painted ellipse, taking into account the off-centered border. Three vacant holes in the exposed ground of the upper corners, marked by arrows in this image, likely played a role in the design transfer.¹⁴Although there are two holes present in the upper left corner, one appears to be a mismeasurement caused by the narrower border on this side. A diagonal line placed across the painting intersects with the upper left hole, a cluster of five pinholes made in the wet paint of the lower right dog’s muzzle (Fig. 13), and the panel’s bottom corner.¹⁵No other pinholes or similar marks in the wet paint are evident elsewhere on the painting, although it is possible that additional marks were covered by subsequent paint. Similarly, a diagonal line from the upper right corner aligns with the knee and foot of the left figure. A vertical line passes through the central figure on horseback, beside the raised forearm of the right hunter, and connects with the upturned nose of the dark, central dog. These overlaid lines emphasize Puvis’s highly balanced, pyramidic composition with rhythmic, dovetailed forms. Edgar Degas (1834–1917) once described Puvis’s command of compositional arrangement: “no one but Puvis knows how to place each figure correctly in a composition. Try to move one of them just a hairline, a point, and you will see that it is impossible.”¹⁶Paul A. Lemoisne, Degas et son œuvre (Paris: Paul Brame et C. M. De Hauke, 1946), 1:144, as cited and translated in Gerd Muehsam, ed., French Painters and Paintings from the Fourteenth Century to Post-Impressionism (New York: Frederick Ungar, 1970), 415.

Fig. 13. Photomicrograph of Return from the Hunt (ca. 1859–62), revealing a group of pinholes on the right dog’s muzzle

fullscreen Fig. 13. Photomicrograph of Return from the Hunt (ca. 1859–62), revealing a group of pinholes on the right dog’s muzzle

While a full palette study was not undertaken for Return from the Hunt, Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR)Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR): A broadly applicable microanalysis method for the identification of paint media classes such as oils, polysaccharides (gum arabic, etc.), proteins (glue and casein tempera), waxes (medium additions and restoration treatments), resins (varnish components), and synthetic media (restoration acrylics). FTIR is also very important for identifying pigments and fillers, and for differentiating closely-related compounds (e.g. neutral and basic lead carbonates, both of which may be found in lead white). confirmed the presence of Prussian blue within the brightest and darkest blues of the monochromatic scene, presumably mixed with zinc white.¹⁷FTIR is unable to confirm the presence or absence of ultramarine, as the x-rays for its associated elements are too weak. Correspondence from Twilley to Schafer, January 13, 2026, NAMA conservation file, 33-149. Puvis rendered the painting in a direct manner with limited colors that range in consistency from fluid to paste-like. He painted up to the edge of forms, being careful not to completely cover his underdrawing. The figures were smoothly painted with gradual modeling, while thicker paint was applied to highlights, drapery, and animals. He shows restraint in his brushwork, conveying detail with only a few carefully placed strokes (Fig. 13) and reducing the background figures to the simplest of forms.

Fig. 14. Photomicrograph with raking illumination, Return from the Hunt (ca. 1859–62), revealing the gold layer that is present beneath the sky

fullscreen Fig. 14. Photomicrograph with raking illumination, Return from the Hunt (ca. 1859–62), revealing the gold layer that is present beneath the sky

A thin layer of metallic gold particles lies beneath the sky and appears to be isolated to this area. Traces of gold are visible where the sky connects to other compositional elements and the outer edge of the upper ellipse (Fig. 14). Puvis covered the gold sky with horizontal strokes of paste-like, off-white paint, producing a striated texture that is prominent today. A second layer of off-white paint was applied wet-over-drywet-over-dry: An oil painting technique that involves layering paint over an already dried layer, resulting in no intermixing of paint or disruption to the lower paint strokes. with somewhat diagonal strokes, and the blue tree trunks were quickly added wet-over-wetwet-over-wet: An oil painting technique which involves drawing a stroke of one color across the wet paint of another color. into this second layer (Fig. 15). The two layers of paint effectively conceal the gold, which suggests that Puvis’s initial concept featured a striking golden sky. Apart from this significant compositional change, Puvis appears to have closely followed the underdrawing with no other deviations. In the final stages of painting, Puvis tidied the outer edges of the ellipse with off-white paint, which is visible with raking lightraking light: An examination technique in which light is placed at a shallow angle from one direction to reveal the surface topography. (Fig. 12).

Fig. 15. Photomicrograph of the left sky, Return from the Hunt (ca. 1859–62), showing the two layers of off-white paint applied on top of the gold layer. The first layer of thick paint produced a horizontal, striated appearance, and the thinner second layer was added with somewhat diagonal brushwork.

fullscreen Fig. 15. Photomicrograph of the left sky, Return from the Hunt (ca. 1859–62), showing the two layers of off-white paint applied on top of the gold layer. The first layer of thick paint produced a horizontal, striated appearance, and the thinner second layer was added with somewhat diagonal brushwork.

The block lettering of the signature on the lower right is unusual and may not be original, as Puvis often signed his easel paintings with cursive script in paint and reserved block lettering for his murals.¹⁸See Aimée Brown Price, Pierre Puvis de Chavannes: A Catalogue Raisonné of the Painted Work (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010), 2:1. The signature on the lower right of Return from the Hunt consists of bronze powder flakes (flakes of brass that imitate gold) and what may be a translucent yellow glue, based on the shrinkage cracks that formed upon drying. The glue and paint may have been applied with a stencil, as there is a lack of brushwork and a thicker buildup of material at the outer edges of the letters (Fig. 16). An important distinction can be made between the metallic materials of the painting; the coarse, brass powder-paint of the signature is a combination of copper and zinc, compared to the fine particles of gold beneath the sky.¹⁹X-ray fluorescence spectrometry (XRF) confirmed the presence of copper and zinc in the signature. In person communication with Twilley, August 18, 2025.

Fig. 16. Photomicrograph of the signature, Return from the Hunt (ca. 1859–62)

fullscreen Fig. 16. Photomicrograph of the signature, Return from the Hunt (ca. 1859–62)

At the outer edges of the ellipse, impressions in the paint and traces of gilding suggest that Return from the Hunt may have been framed before the paint had fully cured. The panel is slightly convex, but no splits or other condition issues are apparent. Fragments of paper tape, glue residues, and numerous scratches and losses to the ground layer are concealed by the current frame.²⁰These condition issues were first noted by Forrest Bailey, May 1974, examination report, NAMA conservation file, 33-149. The painting was reframed with a wooden gilded liner, covering all areas outside of the painted ellipse. A small amount of retouchingretouching: Paint application by a conservator or restorer to cover losses and unify the original composition. Retouching is an aspect of conservation treatment that is aesthetic in nature and that differs from more limited procedures undertaken solely to stabilize original material. Sometimes referred to as inpainting or retouch. is present along the top border and all quadrants of exposed ground. Within the painted scene, small spots of retouching are primarily located on the upper right sky and along the top and center right edges. Although Return from the Hunt was documented as unvarnished prior to treatment in 1974, a synthetic varnish was added at that time.²¹Bailey, May 27, 1974, treatment report, NAMA conservation file, 33-149.

Notes

1. The Vieille stamp is oriented 180 degrees from the painting’s orientation and reads: “VIEILLE / M^[D]DE COULEURS / Rentoile et Restaure les Tableaux / Rue Laval 35, PARIS”.

2. The Tempelaëre stamp is located on the upper left of the panel and reads: “TABLEAUX MODERNES / F & J. TEMPELAERE / 70 B^[d] Malesherbes / PARIS”.

3. Pascal Labreuche, Guide Labreuche: Le guide des fournisseurs de matériel pour artistes, France, XVIIIe–XXe siècles, 2014, https://www.guide-labreuche.com/collection/businesses//businesses/tempelaere-f-et-j.

4. Tempelaëre’s stock number for the painting, “9601” is handwritten on the panel reverse. See the accompanying provenance section by Danielle Hampton Cullen in this catalogue.

5. Labreuche, Guide Labreuche, https://www.guide-labreuche.com/collection/commerces/vieille.

6. See accompanying catalogue essay by Aimée Brown Price. Bruno Foucart proposed that Puvis may have been inspired by the flattened simplicity of the 1862 etching (Fig. 5) and created the Nelson-Atkins painting subsequent to the print. See Bruno Foucart in his entry on the print in Puvis de Chavannes: Une voie singulière au siècle de l’Impressionnisme, exh. cat. (Amiens: Musée de Picardie, 2006), no. 65, p. 100.

7. In 1864, Puvis was painting elliptical, monochromatic pairs of paintings (La Guerre and L’Abondance, Musee de Picardie, Amiens, France), and in later years, he produced allegorical figures with blue tonalities: La Fantaisie (1866; Ohara Museum, Kurashiki, Japan) and Sleep (Le Sommeil) (1867; Musee des Beaux-Arts, Lille). See the accompanying catalogue essay by Brown Price.

8. See the provenance section by Hampton Cullen and catalogue essay by Brown Price.

9. X-ray fluorescence spectrometry (XRF) confirmed the presence of calcium, strontium, and barium in the ground layer. Strontium is often a natural minor component of either barite or calcite, while the barite can be a white pigment in its own right in nineteenth-century works. See correspondence from John Twilley, Nelson-Atkins science advisor, to Mary Schafer, January 13, 2026, NAMA conservation file, 33-149.

10. White paint or ground is visible on the panel edges, and there is no evidence that the panel was ever cut down.

11. Charles Sterling and Margaretta M. Salinger, French Paintings: A Catalogue of the Collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (Greenwich, CT: New York Graphic Society, 1966), 2:225.

12. “Préparez soigneusement votre tableau, disait-il à un de ses élèves, et exécutez-le en lisant votre journal.” All translations by the author unless otherwise noted. See François Fosca, “Les Salons de 1924,” Gazette des Beaux-Arts 9, no. 5 (June 1924): 322–23.

13. The underdrawing materials beneath various parts of Death and the Maidens (1872; Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, MA) were identified as “possibly ink and red pencil lines.” See the technical report by Sandra L. Webber in Nineteenth-Century European Paintings at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2012), 2:616.

14. Although there are two holes present in the upper left corner, one appears to be a mismeasurement caused by the narrower border on this side.

15. No other pinholes or similar marks in the wet paint are evident elsewhere on the painting, although it is possible that additional marks were covered by subsequent paint.

16. Paul A. Lemoisne, Degas et son œuvre (Paris: Paul Brame et C. M. De Hauke, 1946), 1:144, as cited and translated in Gerd Muehsam, ed., French Painters and Paintings from the Fourteenth Century to Post-Impressionism (New York: Frederick Ungar, 1970), 415.

17. FTIR is unable to confirm the presence or absence of ultramarine, as the x-rays for its associated elements are too weak. Correspondence from Twilley to Schafer, January 13, 2026, NAMA conservation file, 33-149.

18. See Aimée Brown Price, Pierre Puvis de Chavannes: A Catalogue Raisonné of the Painted Work (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010), 2:1.

19. X-ray fluorescence spectrometry (XRF) confirmed the presence of copper and zinc in the signature. In person communication with Twilley, August 18, 2025.

20. These condition issues were first noted by Forrest Bailey, May 1974, examination report, NAMA conservation file, 33-149. The painting was reframed with a wooden gilded liner, covering all areas outside of the painted ellipse.

21. Bailey, May 27, 1974, treatment report, NAMA conservation file, 33-149.

provenance

Possibly given by the artist to Charles Ernest Rodolphe “Henri” Salem Lehmann (1814–82), Paris, by June 13, 1866 [1];

Possibly returned by Lehmann to the artist, sometime after June 13, 1866 [2];

With F. and J. Tempelaere, Paris, stock no. 9601, probably around 1927–August 13, 1931 [3];

Purchased from Tempelaere by C. W. Kraushaar Art Galleries, Inc., New York, stock no. 26210, as Retour de la chasse au Sangulier [sic], August 13, 1931–May 5, 1933 [4];

Purchased from C. W. Kraushaar Art Galleries, Inc., by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1933.

Notes

[1] The painting may be one of two camaieux given to the artist’s friend and painter Henri Lehmann; both pictures were returned to Puvis by Lehmann around June 13, 1866. See letter from Lehmann to Puvis, June 13, 1866, private collection, France; cited in Aimée Brown Price, Pierre Puvis de Chavannes (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010), pp. 1:56, 191n236.

[2] The painting was probably restored by artist supplierartist supplier(s): Also called colormen and color merchants. Artist suppliers prepared materials for artists. This tradition dates back to the Medieval period, but the industrialization of the nineteenth century increased their commerce. It was during this time that ready-made paints in tubes, commercially prepared canvases, and standard-format supports were available to artists for sale through these suppliers. It is sometimes possible to identify the supplier from stamps or labels found on the reverse of the artwork. See also canvas stamp, supplier mark, and color merchant. H. Vieille et Troisgros between 1873 and 1878. See black, oval stamp on the panel verso: VIEILLE / M^D. DE COULEURS / Rentoile et Restaure les Tableaux / Rue Laval 35, PARIS. Around this same time, from April 9 to 16, 1878, the painting appeared at the Salle des Dépêches du Figaro, the newspaper’s monthly exhibition, where it was for sale. See “Salle des Dépêches du Figaro,” Le Figaro (April 10, 1878): 3. It is not clear who owned the painting at this time.

[3] See stamp on the painting’s verso, upper left corner: TABLEAUX MODERNE/ F & J. TEMPELAERE/ 70 B^d Malesherbes/ PARIS. Tempelaere had their shop in the specified address from 1925 to 1939. See also a handwritten inscription on the far left of the verso: 9601. This is a Tempelaere stock number, as confirmed by Sylvie Brame, Galerie Brame et Lorenceau, Paris. Brame suggested the date of acquisition could be around 1927. See correspondence from Sylvie Brame, Galerie Brame et Lorenceau, to Danielle Hampton Cullen, the Nelson-Atkins, August 30, 2022, NAMA curatorial files.

[4] See two octagonal paper labels with red border on the panel’s verso: “26210/ [tsn?]” and “26210/ P. de Chavannes/ [tsn?].” See also Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, Kraushaar Galleries Records, 1885–2006, Series 6.4, Financial Records, 1885–1957, Purchase Journal, 1928–1940, box 74, folder 7; and Sales Journal, 1930–1943, box 76, folder 3, page 136.

related

Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, Esau Returning from the Hunt or Winter (oil sketch), 1854, oil on canvas, 21 7/8 x 18 7/8 in. (55.5 x 48 cm), private collection, Le Brouchy, illustrated in Aimée Brown Price, Pierre Puvis de Chavannes (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010), no. 51 , pp. 2:35–36.

Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, Sketch for Esau’s Return from the Hunt, 1854, oil on canvas, 21 5/8 x 18 7/8 in. (55 x 48 cm), private collection, illustrated in Puvis de Chavannes et le musée des Beaux-Arts de Marseille, exh. cat. (Marseille: Le musée, 1984), 52.

Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, Esau’s Return from the Hunt or Winter, 1854–1855, oil on canvas, 98 x 87 1/2 in. (249 x 222.3 cm), private collection, Le Brouchy, illustrated in Aimée Brown Price, Pierre Puvis de Chavannes (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010), no. 56, pp. 2:39–40.

Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, Study for Esau’s Return from the Hunt, ca. 1859, red chalk, 11 1/4 x 9 1/4 in. (28.5 x 23.6 cm), sold at Collection Robert Lebel: Dessins Anciens et du XIX^e Siècle, (Paris: Sotheby’s, March 25, 2009), 96–97.

Attributed to Félix Nadar, after Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, caricature of Un Retour de Chasse, 1859, dimensions unknown, illustrated in “Nadar Jury au Salon de 1859,” Journal pour Rire: Journal Amusant, no. 185 (July 16, 1859): 5.

Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, Return from the Hunt, 1859, oil on canvas, 155 1/2 x 116 1/8 in. (395 x 295 cm), Musée des Beaux-arts, Marseille, BA 214.

Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, The Abduction or Return of the Conquerors, ca. 1859–60, oil on wood panel, 18 1/8 x 15 1/2 in. (47.2 x 39.4 cm), private collection, France, illustrated in Aimée Brown Price, Pierre Puvis de Chavannes (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010), no. 96, pp. 2:69.

Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, Return from the Hunt, 1862, etching in black on laid paper, second and last state, 12 1/2 x 9 1/2 in. (31.7 x 24.2 cm), Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris, Département des Estampes et de la Photographie, DC-303B-FOL.

Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, Nude Man Sitting, 19th century, black crayon on translucent paper, 9 1/8 x 6 5/8 in. (23.2 x 16.7 cm), Musée du Petit Palais, Paris.

Salle des Dépêches du Figaro, Hôtel du Figaro, Paris, April 9–16, 1878, no. cat.

Exhibition of Modern French Paintings, Water Colors and Drawings: Including an Important Group of Drawings and Water Colors by Constantin Guys, C. W. Kraushaar Art Galleries, New York, October 5–31, 1931, no. 10, as Return from the Hunt.

Puvis de Chavannes and the Modern Tradition, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, October 24–November 30, 1975, no. 1, as Return from the Hunt.

references

“Salle des Dépêches du Figaro,” Le Figaro 24, no. 100 (April 10, 1878): 3, as Un Retour de Chasse au Sanglier.

Exhibition of Modern French Paintings, Water Colors and Drawings: Including an Important Group of Drawings and Water Colors by Constantin Guys, exh. cat. (New York: C. W. Kraushaar Art Galleries, 1931), unpaginated, as Return from the Hunt.

Katharine Grant Sterne, “On View in the New York Galleries,” Parnassus 3, no. 6 (October 1931): 6, as Return from the Hunt.

“Nelson Gallery of Art Special Number,” Art Digest 8, no. 5 (December 1, 1933): 22, as Return from the Hunt.

“The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art, Kansas City Special Number,” Art News 32, no. 10 (December 9, 1933): 28, as Return from the Hunt.

“$15,000,000 Nelson Art Gallery Opens: Gift of Kansas City Star Publisher,” Boston Evening Transcript 104, no. 288 (December 11, 1933): 11.

“Art Critics View Nelson Gallery,” New York Times 83, no. 27,718 (December 11, 1933): 24L.

“Nelson Gallery of Art Opens,” Editor and Publisher 66, no. 31 (December 16, 1933): 10.

The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Handbook of the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1933), 48, 138, (repro.), as Return from the Hunt.

A. J. Philpott, “Kansas City Now in Art Center Class: Nelson Gallery, Just Opened, Contains Remarkable Collection of Paintings, Both Foreign and American,” Boston Sunday Globe 125, no. 14 (January 14, 1934): 16.

“A Thrill to Art Expert: M. Jamot is Generous in his Praise of Nelson Gallery,” Kansas City Times 97, no. 247 (October 15, 1934): 7.

The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, The William Rockhill Nelson Collection, 2nd ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1941), 168, as Return from the Hunt.

Ross E. Taggart, ed., Handbook of the Collections in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 4th ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1959), 261, as Return from the Hunt.

Ross E. Taggart and George L. McKenna, eds., Handbook of the Collections in The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Kansas City, Missouri, vol. 1, Art of the Occident, 5th ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1973), 258, as Return from the Hunt.

Richard J. Wattenmaker, Puvis de Chavannes and the Modern Tradition, exh. cat. (Toronto: Art Gallery of Ontario, 1975), 42–43, (repro.), as Return from the Hunt.

Puvis de Chavannes: 1824–1898, exh. cat. (Paris: Éditions des musées nationaux, 1976), 55.

Marie-Christine Boucher, Palais des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris, Musée du Petit Palais: Catalogue des Dessins et Peintures de Puvis de Chavannes (Paris: Musée du Petit Palais, 1979), 14.

Puvis de Chavannes et le musée des Beaux-Arts de Marseille, exh. cat. (Marseille: Le musée, 1984), 52.

Puvis de Chavannes: Une voie singulière au siècle de l’Impressionnisme, exh. cat. (Amiens: Musée de Picardie, 2006), 99–100, as Retour de chasse.

Aimée Brown Price, Pierre Puvis de Chavannes (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010), no. 95, pp. 1:56, 191n236; 2:68–69, as Le Chasse au sanglier, Return from the Hunt, and The Boar Hunt.

Catherine Futter et al., Bloch Galleries: Highlights from the Collection of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2016), 48–49, (repro.), Return from the Hunt.