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Source Description
This drawing depicts a fable about turkeys whose anxieties about falling victim to a fox ultimately make them susceptible to the predator. It was one of 276 designs produced by Jean-Baptiste Oudry related to humorous but educational stories compiled by French poet Jean de La Fontaine in the later 1600s. Published in four luxurious volumes between 1755 and 1759, <em>The Fables of La Fontaine</em> withOudry’s illustrations was one of the most ambitious publishing projects of the artist’s time. The books were art objects meant to be collected more than read, but they were successful enough that they were reissued several times in later centuries.
Scholar Source Context
Document identity
localId
149176
label
The Fox and the Turkey Hens
core
obj
dtoType
drawing
pageCount
1
Source metadata
id
149176
contentType
drawing
title
The Fox and the Turkey Hens
description
This drawing depicts a fable about turkeys whose anxieties about falling victim to a fox ultimately make them susceptible to the predator. It was one of 276 designs produced by Jean-Baptiste Oudry related to humorous but educational stories compiled by French poet Jean de La Fontaine in the later 1600s. Published in four luxurious volumes between 1755 and 1759, <em>The Fables of La Fontaine</em> withOudry’s illustrations was one of the most ambitious publishing projects of the artist’s time. The books were art objects meant to be collected more than read, but they were successful enough that they were reissued several times in later centuries.
date
1733
citation
rights
CC0
rightsUri
CC0
language
en
wikidata
Q79930167
creators
1949
genreSpecific
Drawing
imageCount
1
source
import
dimensionsRaw
Image: 24 x 18.8 cm (9 7/16 x 7 3/8 in.); Sheet: 31 x 26 cm (12 3/16 x 10 1/4 in.)
cul
France, 18th century
accession
1977.93
Source extras
tec
brush and black ink and gray wash heightened with white gouache, blue ink in margin; framing lines in brown ink
tombstone
The Fables of La Fontaine: The Fox and the Turkey Hens, 1733. Jean-Baptiste Oudry (French, 1686–1755). Brush and black ink and gray wash heightened with white gouache, blue ink in margin; framing lines in brown ink; image: 24 x 18.8 cm (9 7/16 x 7 3/8 in.); sheet: 31 x 26 cm (12 3/16 x 10 1/4 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, John L. Severance Fund, 1977.93
series
The Fables of La Fontaine
supportMaterials
description
blue laid paper
collection
DR - French
inscriptions
inscription
signed, lower right, in brown ink: JB. Oudry / 1733; VERSO, upper center, in brown ink: 103.
didYouKnow
The most recent edition of La Fontaine’s Fables illustrated by Oudry was a colored version produced in 2007 by Editions Diane de Selliers.
citations
citation
Webb, Sheila, and Cleveland Museum of Art. <em>Paper, the Continuous Thread</em>. Cleveland, OH: Published by the Cleveland Museum of Art in cooperation with Indiana University Press, 1982.
page_number
Mentioned and reproduced: p. 43, no. 34; Mentioned: p. 68
citation
Montañés-Lleras, Susana. “Fairy Tales and Fables" The transformation of illustration in the long 19th century.” <em>Cleveland Art: Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine</em> 64, no. 1 (2024): 10-11.
page_number
Reproduced and Mentioned: P. 10
citation
Montañés-lleras, Susana. “Of Technology and Fantasy: fairy tales, fables, and the transformation of illustration in the long 19th century.” <em>Gramarye : The Journal of the Sussex Centre for Folklore, Fairy Tales and Fantasy</em> 28 (Winter 2025): 51-65.
page_number
Reproduced p. 53, fig. 3, Mentioned: p. 56-59.
creditline
John L. Severance Fund
updatedAt
2026-05-29 07:40:48.242000
sourceId
149176
dept
Drawings
coll
DR - French
med
brush and black ink and gray wash heightened with white gouache, blue ink in margin; framing lines in brown ink
creatorTags
male
thumbnail_url
image_url
Single page context
seq
1
pageIndex
0
type
photo
mediaId
57052dcbb945748d