Stehende Kuh nach links mit schlafendem Kalb 

Friedrich Wilhelm Hirt made this drawing of a cow and calf in Germany at the turn of the nineteenth century. Cattle appear in art throughout European history, and are commonly associated with pastoral ideals of rural life and agricultural abundance. But during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, as agricultural science developed and selective breeding programmes began to improve yields, livestock became associated with new ideas about agricultural progress, as well as a general sense of national wealth and strength. Hirt was a relatively minor artist working at a time when German art institutions were still taking shape, so it’s interesting to see him engaging with the changing status of cattle in German society. This seemingly simple sketch can tell us something about how new scientific understandings were changing the way people related to the natural world. To understand Hirt’s drawing better, we might look at agricultural manuals, breed journals and other publications that circulated at the time, to understand how these social and economic forces shaped the way people looked at cows.