Why this big sheep's head on the wall of the National Archives?
The image announces an exhibition around merino, this sheep whose superfine wool turned royal and then imperial heads, to the point of causing conflicts between countries.
Thanks to the registers, engravings or letters, but also to more recent photos, we are witnessing a veritable merino war, as well as the epic of the National Sheepfold created under the Ancien Régime.
At the end of the 18th century, Spain reigned over the production of merino, and prohibited the removal of these production animals from its territory.
On the other side of the Pyrenees, we envy these herds, which would make it possible to participate in the development of the market for sheets and clothes.
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"The sheep, humble ruminant, was then the object of a passion that we can hardly imagine today"
, we can read in the exhibition.
The country, whose wool industry is lagging behind, will put itself in diplomatic order to obtain a few heads of cattle.
After a lot of going and ...
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