Public collection via the Cleveland Museum of Art
AT-00011423Carcasses
About the Artwork
With the subject of Carcasses, Alexandre-Gabriel Decamps was following an old artistic tradition. He was inspired by Rembrandt's (1606-1669) Slaughtered Ox (see photo) which he would have seen at the Louvre Museum. Decamps greatly admired the Dutch master and owned several paintings by him. In spite of the inspiration from Rembrandt, Decamps's watercolor of about 200 years later conveys a different mood. Instead of focusing on a single butchered corpse as Rembrandt had, Decamps viewed his bodies and slabs of meat from further back, and he included domestic objects and a background figure standing at a table. Decamps's resulting image stands less as a symbol of death and more as a matter-of-fact representation of daily life.
Inscriptions
signed, lower right, in black gouache: Decamps; verso, upper right, in graphite: 73; upper center, in graphite: [illegible] [Bruget?] / a [Degert?] [all partially erased]; upper center, in graphite: (Decamps [written over previous inscription]; center, in graphite: 19 [circled]; lower right, in graphite: 19 x 12 2; lower left, in graphite: 82; lower right, in graphite: d559cfe 2 s
Provenance
[Colnaghi, London, 1975]. [Shepherd Gallery, New York, 1976-77]; purchased in 1977.
Exhibition history
French Master Drawings from the Collection of Muriel Butkin. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (August 26-October 28, 2001); Dahesh Museum of Art (February 19-May 18, 2002).
Data retrieved from the Cleveland Museum of Art on October 8, 2026. The museum may have updated its record since.
Quick Overview
- Artist
- Alexandre-Gabriel Decamps (French, 1803–1860)
- Date
- 1840–1860
- Medium
- watercolor and gouache
- Dimensions
- Sheet: 24.6 x 17.9 cm (9 11/16 x 7 1/16 in.)
- Type
- Drawing
- Classification
- Drawing
- Department
- Drawings
- Credit line
- Bequest of Muriel Butkin
- Accession no.
- 2008.344
More by Alexandre Gabriel Decamps in museum collections
Open-access museum record · AT-00011423
Powered by Art Trackers