Oryctolagus cuniculus

Status: Endangered. While it has been introduced to other continents and spread across the world, sometimes with disastrous invasive species results, they are Endangered within their native range of Europe because of hunting and habitat loss, and the gap they leave in the ecosystem results in decline of the native predator animals that rely upon them for food.

Across many cultures of the world, the rabbit is associated with women and female deities, lunar cycles, fertility, and rebirth. The power to bring life to the world is the power of creation and regeneration. To the ancient Romans, rabbits represented love, lust, and fecundity and was a favored icon for both Venus (goddess of love) and Diana (goddess of the hunt). Misconceptions about reproduction were put forward by Aristotle, among others, and led to a kind of mystical apprehension of rabbit reproduction. In later medieval times the rabbit was an outright symbol of the feminine, and can be seen in this thinly veiled guise in carvings and illuminations.

Sources: Abraham, Claude K. “Myth and Symbol: The Rabbit in Medieval France.” Studies in Philology, vol. 60, no. 4, 1963, pp. 589–597. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/4173435. Accessed 10 Aug. 2021.

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Size: 7 x 7 inches
Medium: Ink
©2021, Stephanie Law
Original: Sold

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