I had never heard of Wallachian Sheep before I found an 1807 natural history book with a picture of one. It is quite a famous piece, written originally in French by Georges Louis Leclerc de Buffon (1707-1788) and republished in 1807 in English. This Natural History included information on a variety of animals, including sheep. The book didn’t mention much about this type of sheep but a little sleuthing provided a bit of information that I can share with you.
Moravian Wallachia is a mountainous area in the Czech Republic. Wallachians migrated from Romania to this area in the 14th Century. At that time, they brought with them their sheep and their farming methods.
This Wallachian sheep drawing is of a male. The male’s horns tend to form perpendicular to the head in a curled form with the horn itself shaped much like a corkscrew. These sheep had a beautiful white fleece but it was a bland of wool and hair. The proportion of hair was such as to make these sheep not as desirable for wool production. Based on the limited information that I could find and a discussion on the limited use of their wool, it would seem these sheep were cross-bred and no longer exist as a species. They may have been bred with Morinos.
Whether they still exist or not, this Wallachian Sheep drawing is quite lovely and dramatic.
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.
