There were ten volumes in this series on natural history. Georges Louis Leclerc de Buffon (1707-1788) was a French naturalist, mathematician, cosmologist, and encyclopedic author. The books included a number of hand-painted illustrations including this ox drawing. The artists, engravers and painters were not identified.
Volume V was published in 1807 and included information on oxen. This particular specimen, a fine bull, was used to exemplify cattle in general rather than a particular species of bovine.
A brown and white oxen is drawn standing in a field as if he is posing to have his portrait drawn. He has a fine pair of curled horns and looks as if he has freckles on his snout. I with the landscape itself were a little nicer, the sky looks gray and cloudy as if it was going to storm any minute. Off in the distance is a small, white farmhouse.
This image is copyright free and in the public domain anywhere that extends copyrights 70 years after death or at least 120 years after publication when the original illustrator is unknown.
