Farm Animal Portraits

Using over 300 illustrations, this work examines the development of farm animal painting in its historical and agricultural context, and looks closely at the artists, many of them little known, who specialized in this genre. In the late 18th century a fashion for breeding farm animals swept the country, Royalty, nobility and commoners competed side by side for livestock prizes at the agricultural shows which sprung up all over the country. Competition to the breed the fattest animal, on the least amount of food, in the shortest possible time was intense. It was a period of extreme experimentation. Pigs were bred so fat they could not stand unaided and cows weighing 200 stone toured the country on exhibition. Many of these animals are now endangered, extinct or changed beyond recognition and the livestock portraits of the day form the only record of the vanished agricultural heritage.