Fierce and Fragile: Big Cats in the Art of Robert Dallet

In keeping with Hermès’ theme for 2016, "Nature at a Gallop," this album is devoted to the work of Robert Dallet (1923–2006). Dallet, a French painter and illustrator, devoted his life to the representation of wildlife, especially the beauty of big cats. This work presents a previously unpublished selection of watercolors and sketches, paying tribute to the talent and sensitivity of an animal painter adopted by Hermès. The account is also an act of defiance against the gradual disappearance of a threatened world. Professor Alan Rabinowitz, Director of the Panthera Corporation in New York, looks at Robert Dallet’s work from a zoological perspective; Dominique Baqué, a professor at Université Paris VIII, examines its place in the history of Western animal painting; and the writer Nadine Coleno looks at the encounter between the artist and Hermès, which gave birth to over 20 beautiful silk prints.