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Representations of bovines during the Ancien Régime and the first half of the 19th century frequently appear as illustrations in works of modern and contemporary history. More rarely, they become a topic as part of an analysis of rural and landscape representations. Such an approach is exemplified in Paysages, Paysans, a collection edited by Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie and published in 1994. However, there has never really been any attempt to study paintings of this type globally as a source of historical information, even though a trained eye can easily distinguish in various artistic schools the breeds and types of animal and their uses as well as the technical errors made in representing them. In fact, Bernard Denis, a zoo-technician, is among the few researchers who have attempted to apply this particular approach, and the present paper, a chapter of a future doctoral dissertation on horned animals in the agronomic literature from 1700 to 1850, provides a first exploration of this extremely rich field, with over 800 paintings from the period under consideration, from 1600 to 1850.