Explore the Description of this artwork, The Quarry (painting).
The painting depicts the aftermath of a hunt. On the left, two hunting dogs approach a dead roe deer that has been hung from a pine tree by its hind leg, about to eat its quarry as is tradition after a French venery hunt. One has already begun to lap up the deer's blood, and may be trying to keep the other away. Behind them, in the painting's middle, a bearded man in a hat (a self-portrait of Courbet) leans against a second tree alongside his rifle, his arms crossed, smoking a pipe. Behind him, on the painting's right, the young piqueur (master of hounds), dressed in red, sits on a treestump blowing his horn.
quarry pine tree hunting dogs venery hunt self-portrait hunt roe deer