Ornament with Two Bull's Heads (recto); Sketch of Geometric Borders (verso) n.d.

Jean Charles Delafosse rendered this ornament with ink and wash, featuring two bull's heads, emblems laden with symbolism. Bulls, since antiquity, have been potent symbols of strength, fertility, and even divinity. Consider the bull in ancient Minoan culture, where bull-leaping was a central ritual, or the sacred bull Apis in Egypt, worshipped as a manifestation of the god Ptah. The heads here are adorned with festoons of fruit and foliage, suggesting abundance and nature's bounty, yet there’s a tension—a controlled, architectural quality that domesticates this raw power. These motifs are not static; they evolve. The bull, once a symbol of untamed virility, is here tamed, molded into an ornamental form. This taming mirrors our own psychological processes, our attempts to control primal instincts. Delafosse captures the enduring power of symbols, their ability to evoke deep-seated emotions and memories across time.