Rambouillet Merino Rams and Ewes of 1873, Antique Sheep Print

This antique sheep print shows the Merino rams and ewes of the Bergerie Nationale de Rambouillet in 1873, drawn and lithographed by F. Lehnert for the French agricultural album of the Vienna Exposition. It shows the same flock eighty seven years after the 1786 plate, the sheep grown vastly heavier in the fleece and the gateway of the bergerie behind them.

Hung with the 1786 plate it makes the single clearest before and after in the whole album, and the pair are worth a good deal more together than apart. It is a striking visual record of change within a single flock.

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 a lithograph, issued in 1873. It is uncolored. This antique sheep print would suit a farmhouse kitchen, a study or a country interior, and it will interest collectors of animal art, sheep breeding and the history of wool.

The sheet is in good condition, with age toning, scattered foxing and minor marginal marks. The printed image remains clear and well preserved. 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.