La Harde des cerfs, Bronze sculpture in Luxembourg Garden, Paris, France
La Harde des cerfs is a bronze group by Arthur Le Duc showing a stag, a doe and a fawn, hunted and listening to the approaching hounds. The stag stands at the centre, head raised, with branching antlers and a heavily textured neck; the doe lies to its left with her head lifted, and the fawn stands beneath the stag's body. The weathered green metal rests on a rough, rock-like base.
Arthur Le Duc first made a plaster model shown at the 1885 Salon, now kept at the Château des Matignon in Torigny-les-Villes. The bronze was bought by the Musées nationaux in 1886 and assigned to the Musée du Luxembourg in 1889, the year it was shown at the Universal Exhibition. In 1891 it was deposited with the Senate, and in 1986 it was assigned to the Musée d'Orsay while remaining on a southern lawn of the Jardin du Luxembourg.
The title uses two hunting terms: a harde is a herd of wild animals living together, and le rapproché is the dog's work of driving the game toward the hunters during a battue. The group shows a stag, a doe and a fawn tracked by hunters, so the animals are listening, not resting.
The sculpture sits on the southern lawn of Luxembourg Garden and is easy to locate on the grounds. You can view the work from different angles since it stands openly in the landscape without barriers.
A plaster model of this sculpture is kept at the Château des Matignon in Torigny-les-Villes, revealing how the artist originally conceived the composition. A second bronze cast also exists in Belgium, showing how the work was valued beyond French borders.
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