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WEAVER, Thomas (c. 1774-1843), engraved by William WARD (1766-1826)
A Short Horned Heifer, 7 Years Old. Bred and Fed by Mr. Robert Colling, of Barmpton, near Darlington in the County of Durham
Darlington: Published by William Robinson, December 13, 1811. Mezzotint. Sheet size: 21 x 26 inches.
A charming print of this prize heifer by the famous engraver William Ward.
This is a wonderful example of English livestock engraving, a craze that swept throughout the country and occupied the talents and imaginations of many of England's best artists. Paintings and prints of prize livestock were not only used to advertise the sale of an animal but were also commissioned by the owners to boast about a particularly fine breed of livestock in their possession. Boalch states that "It is often asked whether some of the cattle appearing in the prints were as monstrously fat as they were portrayed. The answer must be that in many cases they were, since their dimensions can be checked from the figures given in the descriptive legend at the foot of the print. On the other hand some owners, when seeking to advertise a beast by means of a print, deliberately had some of its features exaggerated... The craze for indiscriminate fattening reached such a pitch that the unfortunate beasts sometimes became too heavy for their own legs and had to be propped up with sticks in order to stand." (Boalch xvii]
Mellon pp. 199; Boalch, Prints and Painting of British Farm Livestock 1780-1910, no. 28
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#3077 $3,500.00 
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© 2002-2005 Donald A. Heald
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