Bonnacon – Helmingham Herbal & Bestiary (c. 1500s)

The work reveals how discovery once operated through attentive description rather than empirical verification.

The Bonnacon is presented with the same visual seriousness as any known animal, suggesting that curiosity, not certainty, governed its inclusion. Rather than distinguishing sharply between fact and speculation, the image holds both in parallel, allowing meaning to emerge through careful recording. Discovery here is not a moment of revelation, but a process shaped by the desire to account for what could not yet be confirmed.

Each work is produced as a hand-numbered limited edition of 50, printed on heavyweight matte paper and finished with a UV protective coating for long-term stability.

The piece is mounted in a white or black frame with an acid-free white mat and arrives ready to hang. Multiple sizes are offered as format options within the same edition.

Every work includes an IkonHaus Certificate of Authenticity.

Bonnacon, dated to the 1500s, appears in the Helmingham Herbal and Bestiary as an illustrated record of a horned beast described within medieval natural histories.

The creature is depicted with a bull-like body and inward-curving horns, accompanied by descriptive text typical of bestiary traditions. Such images were produced as part of early efforts to catalogue the natural world, blending observation, inherited accounts, and textual authority into visual form. The illustration reflects a period when representation served as a primary method for organizing knowledge about unfamiliar or distant phenomena.

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Bonnacon – Helmingham Herbal & Bestiary (c. 1500s)

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