(Cave Paintings - Font-et-Gaume male and female reindeer)

John William Winkler

After the drawings by archeologist Henri 'Abbe' Breuil (French: 1877-1961), these two works represent a singular scene found in the Font-et-Gaume caves of Dordogne, France. Breuil is credited as the first archeologist to date the cave paintings of France to 14,000 - 12,000 BCE, disspelling then-popular theories that the paintings and engravings found on their walls were forgeries. He was also the first person to methodically catalogue the cave images by drawing them on a 38' long sheet.

The Museum of the Origins of Man, Italy describes this work on their website (museoorigini.it/pagina150.html, Fig. F33) as a "Scene of a couple of reindeer. The male, larger, bends down to lick the forehead of the female. This is a very rare scene in rock art." This "scene" is among the most well known of Font-de-Gaume cave due to its portrayal of gentle intimacy.

These two reindeer are engraved into the cave wall and only exhibit the barest traces of pigment after many millenia. The original deer are nearly touching, with the male deer bent toward the lowered forehead of his kneeling mate; it's unclear why John Winkler chose to draw them separately. It appears that the color shown here was filled in by Breuil in the manner of other works found this and other Paleolithic caves.