Dead Eagle Owl

Dead Eagle Owl
Édouard Manet, 1881
97 × 64 cm
Oil on canvas
Foundation E.G. Bührle, Zurich

Dead Eagle Owl (French: Le Grand-duc) is an 1881 oil on canvas painting by Édouard Manet. The painting shows a dead Eurasian eagle-owl hanging upside down on a board as a hunting trophy. Dead Eagle Owl is one of a series of comparable still lifes that Manet in the same year in Versailles, during his recuperation from a serious illness. There are precedents for this morbid work in French still life painting of the 18th century and Dutch still life painting of the 17th century (i.e. Chardin and Weenix). The painting is one of the very few hunting still lifes in Manet's oeuvre. Today the painting is in the collection of the Foundation E.G. Bührle in Zurich.

References

• Hans Jucker, Theodor Müller, Eduard Hüttinger: Sammlung Emil G. Bührle. Kunsthaus Zürich, Zürich 1958.
• George Mauner: Manet – the still life paintings. Harry N. Abrams, New York 2000, ISBN 0-8109-4391-3

Édouard Manet (list of works)
Paintings	The Absinthe Drinker (1859) The Spanish Singer (1860) Boy Carrying a Sword (1861) Music in the Tuileries (1862) The Old Musician (1862) The Luncheon on the Grass (1863) Olympia (1863) The Kearsarge at Boulogne (1864) The Battle of the Kearsarge and the Alabama (1864) The Fifer (1866) The Races at Longchamp (1867) The Balcony (1868) Luncheon in the Studio (1868) The Execution of Emperor Maximilian (1869) Effect of Snow on Petit-Montrouge (1870) Berthe Morisot with a Bouquet of Violets (1872) The Railway (1873) The Reading (1873) Nana (1877) The Plum (1877) Le Suicidé (1877–81) In the Conservatory (1879) Self-Portrait with Palette (1879) Dead Eagle Owl (1881) The Rabbit (1881) A Bar at the Folies-Bergère (1882)
Models	Victorine Meurent Suzanne Manet