The Wolf and the Fox
1733
- Medium
- Brush and black ink and brush and gray wash, heightened with white gouache, on blue paper
- Dimensions
- 31.1 × 26 cm
- Status
- In Museum Collection
- Collect24 Art ID
- C24-214807
A fox, tired of eating chicken, asks a wolf how to hunt larger animals. The wolf teaches the fox to disguise himself as a wolf, and together they stalk a herd of sheep. The shepherd flees with his flock, leaving behind a sacrificial lamb. For his illustration of the tale, Jean-Baptiste Oudry chose the moment when the lamb figures out the plot. To the wolf's dismay, the lamb fools the fox by directing it to chase a rooster. The fable's moral is that to change one's basic nature is impossible. Though he worked as a tapestry designer, Oudry labored in his spare time over a five-year period to produce 276 illustrations for Jean de La Fontaine's *Fables,* a popular collection of satires written in the 1600s. Oudry's drawings were published in a luxury edition of the *Fables* in 1755.
Provenance
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
Registry history
- 1733 — Recorded in the collection of J. Paul Getty Museum — drawings
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