The Cow with a Subtile Nose is an oil and enamel painting on canvas by French painter Jean Dubuffet, created in 1954.
[1] Starting in July 1954 Dubuffet often went to Durtol, a small village near Clermont-Ferrand, where his wife lived for health reasons.
He said: "I took great pleasure in looking at the cows for a long time as I had done in the past and then drawing them from memory, or sometimes even, but much more exceptionally, from life.
He said this was "highlighting the tiny networks of veins and ocellations caused by the presence of two enemy paintings.
[3] The style of the painting is deliberately primitive; the large cow occupies most of the canvas, in a greenish background, which seems to represent her pasture.