Oudry's Painted Menagerie: Portraits of Exotic Animals in Eighteenth-Century France

This beautiful volume—published to coincide with an exhibition at the J. Paul Getty Museum to be held from May 1 to September 2, 2007—is the first to focus on the series of life-size portraits painted by the eighteenth-century artist Jean-Baptiste Oudry of the animals in Louis XV's royal menagerie at Versailles. A tiger, a lion, a leopard, and, most impressive of all, the famous rhinoceros known as Clara joined a group of other exotic animals in Oudry's "painted menagerie," which was purchase…