Pheasant, Hare and Red Partridge

On a record card drawn up in Munich in 1945, under identifying marks, this painting is noted as Hitler 3383. It is one of the works the French state recovered from Germany after the Second World War, and it does not belong to the Louvre. Its inventory number begins with MNR, for Musées Nationaux Récupération, the label for recovered works that the national museums hold in trust until their rightful owners or heirs can be found.

Oudry signed and dated it in 1753 and showed it at that year's Salon. A cock pheasant, a hare and a red partridge hang dead against a wall of bare planks. Its history is then known through French collections, a sale in 1764 and another at the Hôtel Drouot in Paris in 1923. In 1944 Hildebrand Gurlitt, a German dealer who bought for the museum Hitler planned for Linz, the Austrian city where he grew up, acquired it in Paris from a private collector, through the dealer Theo Hermsen. The canvas became number 3383 of the Linz collection and was stored in the salt mine at Altaussee as Germany collapsed.

The Americans registered it at the Munich Central Collecting Point in July 1945, and it was returned to France on 18 April 1946. Its history between 1933 and 1945 is still incomplete, and in 1950 it was placed in the Louvre's care.