Framed and on the wall
Frame and rooms are illustrations of how the print could look; the description says what is included.
Flemish Cow, Antique French Cattle Print, Riffaut Heliogravure, 1873
$495 (£375, €440)
Period original, not a reproduction.
Shipped from the Netherlands, flat, insured and tracked, worldwide. Returns accepted within 14 days.
- Date
- 1873
- Technique
- Aquatint
- Coloring
- Printed color
- Condition
- Good. Good condition with age toning, scattered foxing and light fading. Binding wear and small losses are visible along the left edge. Sold unframed. Please review the images for further condition details.
- Period
- Late 19th century
- Section
- Mammals
- Reference
- BG-13538-12
What the condition grades mean
- Excellent
- Bright and clean, with no faults worth mentioning.
- Very good
- Only light signs of age, such as faint toning.
- Good
- Normal signs of age for a sheet of this period: toning, some foxing, small marks or neat old repairs.
- Fair
- Clear faults such as staining, tears or repairs, priced to match.
Every fault we see is written in the condition note, and the whole sheet is shown uncropped in the photos.
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 visualization 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. Any framed or interior images are shown for presentation and inspiration only, unless the listing explicitly states that the item is sold framed.
