Flemish Cow, Antique French Cattle Print, Riffaut Heliogravure, 1873

This antique cattle print portrays a deep red Flemish cow by A. Riffaut, printed by Lemercier for the French agricultural album of the Vienna Exposition, 1873. She stands in a flat, watery pasture with other cattle lying behind her, and the plate is lettered A. Riffaut, heliog. et sculp.

The Flamande was the great dairy cow of the northern plain and is drawn here with the long body and fine bone the breeders wanted. It belongs to the run of French breed portraits in the album and is one of its most characterful animal studies.

The sheet comes from the folio of maps, plans and drawings that the Direction de l'Agriculture of the French Ministry of Agriculture and Commerce assembled for its own exhibit at the Exposition Universelle held in Vienna in 1873, printed in Paris by the Imprimerie Nationale. The album gathered the statistical cartography, the model state farms, the breed portraits and the prize silver by which France meant to present its agriculture to the world. Its thematic maps belong to the first generation of printed statistical mapping, a field now collected for the history of data visualisation quite as much as for the history of farming.

The print is cataloged as an aquatint printed in color, and the lettering heliog. et sculp. indicates that a heliogravure process was probably also involved. The color is printed rather than applied by hand. This antique cattle print would suit a farmhouse kitchen, a study or a country interior, and it will interest collectors of animal art, French cattle breeds and agricultural history alike.

The sheet is in good condition, with age toning, scattered foxing and light fading. Binding wear and small losses are visible along the left edge. The toning is the ordinary result of age rather than damage. Please see the images for a full view of the condition.

This is an original antique print, not a modern reproduction. This item is sold unframed.