A trip to Paris with friends leads (1) to the story of the author’s purchase of a painting of a pregnant ewe by sheep painter Jean Francois Fourtou (of Madrid) and (2) a subject for her Fortnightly paper about both the artist and the history of Merino sheep (which began in Asia Minor). Serious breeding began in Canaan and moved around the Mediterranean and beyond. The finest wooled Merino sheep are ancestors of the famous imperial Merino flock at Rambouillet, a gift from the King of Spain to Louis XVI of France in 1786.