Our understanding of the evolution of livestock is enhanced by the study of art.
During the eighteenth century members of the English landed gentry had portraits painted of their favourite dogs, horses or cattle.
It was a sign of affection, but also an indication of status which indicated the wealth and social standing of the landholder.
Some artists turned their talent into wealth for themselves by concentrating on that lucrative demand and no better practised than George Stubbs who is now recognised as an outstanding painter of horses.
His horses, in their various poses were indeed anatomically accurate as Stubbs has carefully dissected dead animals to understand their muscle patterns beneath the skins.
An etching of the Durham Ox, an early example of the Shorthorn breed by John Boultbee (1753-1812) was of the animal, which became famous in the early 19th century for his shape, size and weight.
A painting by Dutch artist Albert Cuyp and property of the National Gallery, London, caught my attention during a recent exhibition in Canberra.
Titled A hilly river landscape with horseman talking to a shepherdess, it clearly shows cattle and sheep in fine detail as seen in my snapshot.
The cow with the black body and white face might be an ancestor of the modern Holstein/Friesian milking breed: but it was the sheep with their carefully shaped horns and fleece that piqued my interest.
To my mind, the artist had perhaps inadvertently, but certainly with accuracy captured an early vision of the so-called Spanish sheep, which the world now knows as the Merino.
It was an interesting interpretation, as the Spanish sheep had been carefully isolated in Spain for centuries with only a few rams and ewes imported to Sweden in 1723.
They were the earliest known Spanish sheep to leave Spain: but if Albert Cuyp had indeed captured a vision of the proto-type Merino, which I do think he has, then the history of the Merino sheep has deeper roots than thought.
With the provenance of British and European artists featuring livestock in their paintings, it was not surprising that skilled artists also depicted cattle and sheep in the colonial Australian landscape.
The Bengal cow with calf, 1809 held in the State Library of NSW, clearly shows a Bos Indicus-influenced calf beside a mother of interminable breed: but were those animals typical of those being imported.
The first cattle, two bulls and five cows were described as black Cape cattle but later colonial imports from England included the Red Poll and Hereford breeds, while Shorthorns were introduced in numbers as the pastoral industry evolved through the nineteenth-century.
Colonial paintings by John Glover, Eugene von Gerard and Nicholas Chevalier depict red/brown cattle with some white patches but of no recognisable breed and it was not until Robert Dowling in 1856 painted Jeremiah Ware's stock on Minjah Station (Art Gallery of South Australia) that we come to see cattle which can be clearly defined as a breed.
Looking at the detail of that painting, and also of the Durham Ox, many viewers will be asking of the stock - how accurate are they are in conformation.
With their deep bodies and apparently short legs, they might at first glance appear to be out of proportion and especially when compared to today's breeds.
But we do have to accept the artists' interpretation - after all, many of the paintings were commissioned by wealthy stock owners and it would not have paid the artist to paint an impression of an animal which was not close to real life.
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