No one would know from Amiet's small etching of black-and-white cows that he went on to become one of Switzerland's most prominent painters.

The billboards featured black-and-white cows in repose, with such headlines as: "Jerseymaid.

Across yet another stile a few hundred yards to the west, in the company of a black-and-white cow, we admired a high cross depicting the Crucifixion.

A lonely black-and-white cow grazes beside a road in south-western Russia, 100km (60 miles) from Kursk.

In the middle of April, though, a raiding party brought back half a dozen black-and-white cows, and Julius decreed that one should be killed and roasted.

This Friesian type now forms 60 per cent of the national cow herd: there are more than 370,000 black-and-white cows.

They were nice black-and-white cows.

The exception is a 1970-to-94 pastel featuring a black-and-white cow alone in the field, which may be the best piece in the show.

One of her higher-profile customers is Gateway, the computer maker based in San Diego, whose company logo is a black-and-white cow printed on its shipping boxes.

Inside, the black-and-white cows are on window decals, waitresses' shirts, wallpaper borders, pictures and cutouts.