The subject depicted on the cover of this box is derived from the etching by Jean-Baptiste Oudry entitled Le Chevreuil forcé (fig. 1), after the same artist's painting Un chevreuil lancé et des chiens. The painting was one of four exhibited by Oudry at the Exposition de la Jeunesse in 1725, and subsequently hung in the Salle des Gardes at the Château de Chantilly until 1820. At that date, it was sent by the state to the Musée des Beaux-Arts at Rouen where it remains. (Fernand Engerand, Inventaire des Tableaux commandés et achetés par la direction des Batiments du Roy (1709-1792). Paris, 1901, pp. 362-3; Jean Locquin, Catalogue raisonné de l'oeuvre de Jean-Baptiste Oudry, peintre du roi, Paris, 1912, p. 51, no. 261 and p. 186, no. 1285; Olga Popovitch, Catalogue des peintures du Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rouen, Paris, 1967, p. 96). Oudry's etching after this painting was among a suite of four depicting hunting scenes. They were among the best known of this artist's etched work (A. P. F. Robert-Dumesnil, Le Peinture-Graveur Français: Tome Second, Paris, 1836, pp. 190-191; Nicolette Hennique, Jean- Baptiste Oudry, Paris, 1926, pp. 26-9)
In Germany they were copied by Johann Elias Ridinger, the painter and graphic artist who specialised in hunting scenes. This accounts for the appearance of ‘Le Chevreuil forcé’ in reverse on products of Germanic origin such as a Meissen teapot of circa 1745 which was sold at Sotheby’s, London in 1970 (See Thienemannm Georg Aug. Wilh., Leben und Wirken des Unvergleichlichen Theirmalers und Kupferstechers Johann Elias Ridinger... Leipzig, 1856, pp. 237-238, no. 116; and Catalogue of an Important Collection of Meissen Porcelain Wares, Sotheby’s, London, 10th March, lot 56).