Artwork Page for Fight Between a Tiger and a Buffalo

Details / Information for Fight Between a Tiger and a Buffalo

Fight Between a Tiger and a Buffalo

1908

Henri Rousseau

(French, 1844–1910)
Culture
France, late 19th-early 20th Century
Medium
oil on fabric
Measurements
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.)
Credit Line
Gift of the Hanna Fund 1949.186
Public Domain
You can copy, modify, and distribute this work, all without asking permission. Learn more about CMA's Open Access Initiative.
Location
On view at The Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia, PA, Oct 19, 2025 - Feb 22, 2026
Print
?

Did You Know?

Many of Henri Rousseau's paintings depict wild animals and tropical jungles that might lead one to believe he traveled widely. However, Rousseau never left France, but drew inspiration from visiting botanical gardens and reading travel books.

Description

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.
Oil painting depicting a stylized scene in a dense jungle of a lion attacking a buffalo, biting the neck and paw pressing the buffalo's muzzle to the ground. Lower left, the tiger is orange-brown with even rows of black stripes and yellow eyes while the buffalo is grey-brown, one visible eye staring out at us. Green leaves of varying shapes coat the scene, interspersed with clusters of pale yellow bananas and round, orange fruits.

Fight Between a Tiger and a Buffalo

1908

Henri Rousseau

(French, 1844–1910)
France, late 19th-early 20th Century

See Also

Visually Similar by AI

    Contact Us

    The information about this object, including provenance, may not be currently accurate. If you notice a mistake or have additional information about this object, please email collectionsdata@clevelandart.org.

    To request more information about this object, study images, or bibliography, contact the Ingalls Library Reference Desk.

    All images and data available through Open Access can be downloaded for free. For images not available through Open Access, or any image with a color bar, request a digital file from Image Services.