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Fight Between a Tiger and a Buffalo
About the Artwork
Having never ventured outside France, Henri 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.
Inscriptions
Signed and dated lower right: Henri Rousseau / 1908
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.
Exhibition history
In Memoriam: Leonard C. Hanna, Jr.. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (March 4-April 7, 1958). Masterpieces of Art. Century 21 Exposition, Seattle, WA (organizer) (April 21-September 4, 1962). Henri Rousseau. Wildenstein & Co., New York, NY (organizer) (April 16-May 25, 1963). Le Monde Des Neifs (De Lusthof Der Naieven). Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, Netherlands (organizer) (July 10-September 6, 1964); Musée National d'Art Moderne, Paris, Cedex 04, France (October 14-December 6, 1964). Years of Ferment: The Birth of Twentieth-century Art. Frederick S. Wight Art Gallery, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA (January 24-March 7, 1965); San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA (March 28-May 16, 1965); The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (July 14-August 22, 1965). Creativity in Art and Science, 1860-1960. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (September 16-November 8, 1987). Henri Rousseau and the Modern Age. Künsthalle Tubingen, D-72076 Tübingen, Germany (organizer) (February 3-June 17, 2001). Jungles in Paris: The Paintings of Henri Rousseau. Tate Modern, London, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (organizer) (November 3, 2005-February 5, 2006); Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais, 75008 Paris, France (March 13-June 19, 2006); National Gallery of Art, Landover, MD (July 16-October 15, 2006). Monet to Dalí: Modern Masters from the Cleveland Museum of Art. Seoul Art Center, South Korea (December 22, 2006-March 28, 2007); Seoul Olympic Museum of Art, South Korea (April 7-May 20, 2007); Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver, Canada (June 9-September 16, 2007); The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (October 21, 2007-January 13, 2008). Admired from Afar: Masterworks of Japanese Painting from the Cleveland Museum of Art. Tokyo National Museum, Tokyo, Japan (January 15-February 23, 2014); Kyushu National Museum, Fukuoka, Japan (July 8-August 31, 2014). The Shadow of the Avant-Garde. Museum Folkwang, 45128 Essen, Germany (organizer) (October 3, 2015-January 10, 2016). Le Douanier Rousseau. L'innocence archaïque. Musée d'Orsay, Paris, France (organizer) (March 21-July 17, 2016); National Gallery, Prague (September 16, 2016-January 15, 2017). Henri Rousseau: A Painter’s Secrets. The Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia, PA (organizer) (October 19, 2025-February 22, 2026) https://www.barnesfoundation.org/whats-on/exhibitions/henri-rousseau-a-painters-secrets?gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=20125069632&gbraid=0AAAAACP5DbL4rs-9EfKRpQcP3HjjlYEfb&gclid=Cj0KCQjw0NPGBhCDARIsAGAzpp0GmWNK1KSSGhKIsZvvTWdQSwfepIT4aDadyzyDDvYho3pdqzpJPgMaAr91EALw_wcB; Musée de l'Orangerie, Paris, France (March 24-July 20, 2026).
Quick Overview
- Artist
- Henri Rousseau (French, 1844–1910)
- Date
- 1908
- Medium
- oil on fabric
- 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.)
- Type
- Painting
- Classification
- Painting
- Department
- Modern European Painting and Sculpture
- Credit line
- Gift of the Hanna Fund
- Accession no.
- 1949.186
More by Henri Rousseau in museum collections
Data retrieved from the Cleveland Museum of Art on October 7, 2026. The museum may have updated its record since.
Open-access museum record · AT-00000255
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