[12] A rhinoceros had not been seen in Europe since Roman times: it had become something of a mythical beast, occasionally conflated in bestiaries with the "monoceros" (unicorn), so the arrival of a living example created a sensation. Brought from India to the great and powerful King Emanuel of Portugal at Lisbon a live animal called a rhinoceros. Albuquerque passed the gift on to Dom Manuel I, the king of Portugal. [10] The ship, captained by Francisco Pereira Coutinho,[11] and two companion vessels, all loaded with exotic spices, sailed across the Indian Ocean, around the Cape of Good Hope and north through the Atlantic, stopping briefly in Mozambique, Saint Helena and the Azores. He made a pen and ink drawing Albrecht Dürer, a German painter and printmaker living in Nuremberg, was captivated by the strangeness of the animal. [13] The only known copy of the original published poem is held by the Institución Colombina in Seville. Durer’s text at the top of the woodcut confirms the impression that the image gives of a powerful fighting beast feared even by elephants. [43] The rhinoceros was depicted in numerous other paintings and sculptures and became a popular decoration for porcelain. 2-nov-2016 - and various related Dürer's Rhinoceros is the name commonly given to a woodcut executed by German painter and printmaker Albrecht Dürer in 1515. [31] Dürer also draws a scaly texture over the body of the animal, including the "armour". David nalle: Albrecht Durer Gothic. Burgkmair corresponded with merchants in Lisbon and Nuremberg, but it is not clear whether he had access to a letter or sketch as Dürer did, perhaps even Dürer's sources, or saw the animal himself in Portugal. [1] The image is based on a written description and brief sketch by an unknown artist of an Indian rhinoceros that had arrived in Lisbon in 1515. None of these features is present in a real rhinoceros,[5][6] although the Indian rhinoceros does have deep folds in its skin that can look like armor from a distance. 136; M., Holl. Dürer's "Rhinoceros" was part of the exhibition "Prints and the Pursuit of Knowledge in Early Modern Europe," which was on view September 6–December 10, 2011 at the Arthur M. Sackler Museum. Cet animal avait été offert par le roi du Portugal Manuel Ier au pape Leo X. Creator/Artist; Name: Dürer, Albrecht: Date of birth/death: 1471-05-21: 1528-04-06: Location of birth/death: Deutsch: Nürnberg. [19][20], Valentim Fernandes, a Moravian merchant and printer, saw the rhinoceros in Lisbon shortly after it arrived and described it in a newsletter sent to the Nuremberg community of merchants in June 1515. Source. From David Tunick, Inc., Albrecht Dürer, The Rhinoceros (1515), Woodcut on laid paper, 8 1/2 × 11 3/4 in Albrecht Dürer. Rhinoceros. (Bedini, p.121.). [36] Images derived from it were included in naturalist texts, including Sebastian Münster's Cosmographiae (1544), Conrad Gessner's Historiae Animalium (1551), Edward Topsell's Histoire of Foure-footed Beastes (1607) and many others. He did see descriptions of the animal, and even a sketch, sent from Lisbon to Nuremburg by eyewitnesses. [35] Later printings have six lines of descriptive text. Clarke, caption to colour plate I, p.181. His skill can be seen in the delicate shading and the intricate patterning of the animal’s hide. Cole, F.J. (Francis Joseph), "The History of Albrecht Durer's Rhinoceros in Zoological Literature," essay in Underwood, E. Ashworth (ed. A fine example was sold at Christie's New York in 2013 for $866,500, setting a new auction record for the artist. Although the letterpress text atop this broadsheet suggests otherwise, he in fact copied the woodcut from a drawing and a description given by an eyewitness before the ship carrying this gift for the king of Portugal sank on the way from India. [44], The pre-eminent position of Dürer's image and its derivatives declined from the mid-to-late-18th century when more live rhinoceroses were transported to Europe, shown to the curious public, and depicted in more accurate representations. 136; M., Holl. "Albrecht Dürer The Rhinoceros (B. Le dessin est reporté sur le bois, puis gravé à la pointe et au burin, ensuite le tirage de la gravure fait que le sens est inversé sur la feuille par rapport au dessin initial. English: The Rhinoceros is a woodcut Albrecht Dürer made from a description provided him. [47] Semiotician Umberto Eco argues (fetching the idea from E.H. Gombrich, Art and Illusion: A Study in the Psychology of Pictorial Representation, 1961) that Dürer's "scales and imbricated plates" became a necessary element of depicting the animal, even to those who might know better, because "they knew that only these conventionalized graphic signs could denote «rhinoceros» to the person interpreting the iconic sign." [48], Until the late 1930s, Dürer's image appeared in school textbooks in Germany as a faithful image of the rhinoceros;[7] and it remains a powerful artistic influence. [14] The rhinoceros advanced slowly and deliberately towards its foe; the elephant, unaccustomed to the noisy crowd that turned out to witness the spectacle, fled the field in panic before a single blow was struck.[15][16]. Dürer never saw the actual rhinoceros, which was the first living example seen in Europe since Roman times. [37][38] The resulting chiaroscuro woodcut, which entirely omitted the text, was published after 1620. 1. See also a French translation in the doctoral thesis of Bruno Faidutti at l', Group of History and Theory of Science – Dürer's Rhinoceros, História do famoso rhinocerus de Albrecht Dürer, "Albrecht Dürer's Rhinoceros, a drawing and woodcut", The Durer Rhinoceros - Masterpieces of the British Museum, File:Durer's Rhinoceros on Cathedral Door, Pisa C17th.jpg, "Albrecht Dürer: Masterpieces from a Private Collection", Joachim and Anne Meeting at the Golden Gate, Portrait of the Artist's Mother at the Age of 63, Colossal quartzite statue of Amenhotep III, Amun in the form of a ram protecting King Taharqa, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dürer%27s_Rhinoceros&oldid=996864863, Prints and drawings in the British Museum, Articles with French-language sources (fr), Articles with Portuguese-language sources (pt), Wikipedia articles with WorldCat-VIAF identifiers, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. He depicts an animal with hard plates that cover its body like sheets of armour, with a gorget at the throat, a solid-looking breastplate, and rivets along the seams. The King was keen to curry favour with the Pope, to maintain the papal grants of exclusive possession to the new lands that his naval forces had been exploring in the Far East since Vasco da Gama discovered the sea route to India around Africa in 1498. ‎Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the great German artist Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528) who achieved fame throughout Europe for the power of his images. The elephant is afraid of the rhinoceros, for, when they meet, the rhinoceros charges with its head between its front legs and rips open the elephant's stomach, against which the elephant is unable to defend itself. (He never personally saw one.) He also assures the viewer that “This is an accurate representation”. [2] In late 1515, the King of Portugal, Manuel I, sent the animal as a gift for Pope Leo X, but it died in a shipwreck off the coast of Italy in early 1516. Google Arts & Culture features content from over 2000 leading museums and archives who have partnered with the Google Cultural Institute to bring the world's treasures online. The image is based on a written description and brief sketch by an unknown artist of an Indian rhinoceros that had arrived in Lisbon in 1515. It is a world in which the nations of Europe were competing not just in Europe itself but across the globe in Asia as well as the Americas. The thick folded skin of the Indian rhinoceros has been portrayed as something more like armour plating. Rhinoceros. (23.8 x 29.9 cm) Classification: Prints. Dürer's Rhinoceros is the name commonly given to a woodcut executed by German painter and printmaker Albrecht Dürer in 1515. Dürer’s Rhinoceros is a woodcut created by Albrecht Dürer in 1515 A.D. As an illustration of an animal at the center of a famous series of events, the woodcut was highly popular in the artist’s lifetime. It sailed on the Nossa Senhora da Ajuda,[9] which left Goa in January 1515. In particular, Oudry's painting was the inspiration for a plate in Buffon's encyclopedic Histoire naturelle, which was widely copied. Albrecht Dürer The Rhinoceros woodcut with letterpress text, 1515, on laid paper, watermark Anchor in a Circle (M. 171), a good impression of this rare and important woodcut, first edition (of eight), with the crack in the block just beginning to show in the right hind leg, with the complete letterpress text above, with 3-5 mm. Dimensions: image: 8 3/8 x 11 5/8 in. Work location: Deutsch: Nürnberg, Augsburg, Venedig, Niederlande. The ruler of Gujarat, Sultan Muzafar II (1511-26) had presented it to Alfonso d'Albuquerque, the governor of Portuguese India. So he began to a prepare a pen sketch relying on the written description and the sketch made by an unknown artist. The rhinoceros is so well-armed that the elephant cannot harm it. It is an emblem of the world of his time. Jean-Baptiste Oudry painted a life-size portrait of Clara the rhinoceros in 1749, and George Stubbs painted a large portrait of a rhinoceros in London around 1790. [8] At that time, the rulers of different countries would occasionally send each other exotic animals to be kept in a menagerie. Artist: Albrecht Dürer (German, Nuremberg 1471–1528 Nuremberg) Date: 1515. Dürer's Rhinoceros is the name commonly given to a woodcut executed by German painter and printmaker Albrecht Dürer in 1515. To the modern eye it does not appear to be a very realistic depiction of a rhinoceros. The Rhinoceros is a Northern Renaissance Wood Block Print Print created by Albrecht Dürer in 1515. (Bedini, p.121.) Dürer may have anticipated this and deliberately chosen to create a woodcut, rather than a more refined and detailed engraving, as this was cheaper to produce and more copies could be printed. [35][39] There is an example in the British Museum. The popularity of the inaccurate Dürer image remained undiminished despite an Indian rhinoceros spending eight years in Madrid from 1580 to 1588 (although a few examples of a print of the Madrid rhinoceros sketched by Philippe Galle in Antwerp in 1586, and derivative works, have survived), and the exhibition of a live rhinoceros in London a century later, from 1684–86, and of a second individual after 1739. Rhinocerus (Rhinoceros) by Albrecht Dürer. Albrecht Dürer Rhinoceros. [11], The block passed into the hands of the Amsterdam printer and cartographer Willem Janssen (also called Willem Blaeu amongst other names). [1] The image was based on a written description and brief sketch by an unknown artist of an Indian rhinoceros that had arrived in Lisbon earlier that year. Find more prominent pieces of animal painting at Wikiart.org – best visual art database. If a stuffed rhinoceros did arrive in Rome, its fate remains unknown: it might have been removed to Florence by the Medici or destroyed in the 1527 sack of Rome. It was one of the inspirations for Salvador Dalí; a reproduction of the woodcut hung in his childhood home and he used the image in several of his works. [30] Alternatively, Dürer's "armour" may represent the heavy folds of thick skin of an Indian rhinoceros, or, as with the other inaccuracies, may simply be misunderstandings or creative additions by Dürer. Meder 1932 / Dürer Katalog (273.1) Bartsch / Le Peintre graveur (VII.147.136) Dodgson 1903, 1911 / Catalogue of Early German and Flemish Woodcuts in the BM, 2 vols (I.307.125) (first edition) Schoch 2001-04 / Albrecht Dürer, das druckgraphische Werk. It is thought to have sold as many as 5,000 copies in Durer’s lifetime and was to become the iconic image that Europeans turned to describe the rhinoceros until well into the eighteenth century. On 20 May 1515, an Indian rhinoceros arrived in Lisbon from the Far East. [17] The vessel passed near Marseille in early 1516. It's fair to say that this woodcut is not a fully accurate representation of an Indian rhinoceros through its depiction of the animal being covered in what looks like armor. A duel between a rhinocerus and an elephant? In the context of the Renaissance, it was a piece of classical antiquity which had been rediscovered, like a statue or an inscription. [38][40], Despite its errors, the image remained very popular,[6] and was taken to be an accurate representation of a rhinoceros until the late 18th century. King Francis I of France was returning from Saint-Maximin-la-Sainte-Baume in Provence, and requested a viewing of the beast. La imagen se basaba en … The Rhinoceros, which must have seemed like a mythical beast to those that viewed it first in Lisbon, would have been a potent symbol of that exotic, untamed, outside world to which Europe was bringing order and enlightenment. A blackletter. [23] Dürer – who was acquainted with the Portuguese community of the factory at Antwerp[24] – saw the second letter and sketch in Nuremberg. [46] In 1790, James Bruce's travelogue Travels to discover the source of the Nile dismissed Dürer's work as "wonderfully ill-executed in all its parts" and "the origin of all the monstrous forms under which that animal has been painted, ever since". The rhinoceros’ horn is much larger and imposing than in nature and, indeed, Durer shows the animal as having a second, smaller, spiral horn on its back. Albrecht Dürer had a showman’s instincts for killer subject matter. Dürer’s depiction of the animal shaped the European image of an Indian rhinoceros right up to the mid 18th century, when another specimen arrived in Europe. The rhinoceros’ horn is much larger and imposing than in nature and, indeed, Durer shows the animal as having a second, smaller, spiral horn on its back. 473x327 (35929 octets) ( fr:Rhinocéros Rhinocéros dessiné par fr:Albrecht_Dürer Albrecht Dürer en fr:1515 1515. But Durer’s “Rhinoceros” is more than just the depiction of an exotic beast. Title: The Rhinoceros. 136 (Grav. Rhinocéros dessiné par Albrecht Dürer en 1515. Español : El Rinoceronte de Durero es el nombre que recibe un grabado xilográfico creado por el pintor y grabador alemán Alberto Durero en 1515. His woodcuts had made him one of the most famous and successful artists in Europe. The German inscription on the woodcut, drawing largely from Pliny's account,[14] reads: On the first of May in the year 1513 AD [sic], the powerful King of Portugal, Manuel of Lisbon, brought such a living animal from India, called the rhinoceros. The rhinoceros, chained and shackled to the deck to keep it under control, was unable to swim to safety and drowned. Manfred Klein. In any event, there was not the popular sensation in Rome that the living beast had caused in Lisbon, although a rhinoceros was depicted in contemporary paintings in Rome by Giovanni da Udine and Raphael. A live rhinoceros was not seen again in Europe until a second specimen, named Abada, arrived from India at the court of Sebastian of Portugal in 1577, being later inherited by Philip II of Spain around 1580. 241; S.M.S. Eventually, it was supplanted by more realistic drawings and paintings, particularly those of Clara the rhinoceros, who toured Europe in the 1740s and 1750s. Hear about the contest held by Manuel I of Portugal. Developments in printing technology meant that his “Rhinoceros” could be reproduced in much greater quantities than previously and priced to be within the reach of the less wealthy. (21.3 x 29.5 cm) trimmed to block line except at top sheet: 9 3/8 x 11 3/4 in. Albrecht Dürer never saw a rhinoceros in real life. Dürer hatte das Nashorn selbst nie gesehen. He depicts an animal with hard plates that cover its body like sheets of armour, with a gorget at the throat, a solid-looking breastplate, and what appear to be rivets along the seams. His form is here represented. [5][6] It is possible that a suit of armour was forged for the rhinoceros's fight against the elephant in Portugal, and that these features depicted by Dürer are parts of the armour. After a relatively fast voyage of 120 days, the rhinoceros was finally unloaded in Portugal, near the site where the Manueline Belém Tower was under construction. It is said that the rhinoceros is fast, impetuous and cunning. When Durer was young he le arned how to be a goldsmith like his father. He did this until until he was 15 and started training with Michael Wolgemut. Despite its anatomical inaccuracies, Dürer's woodcut became very popular in Europe and was copied many times in the following three centuries. [3][4], Dürer's woodcut is not an entirely accurate representation of a rhinoceros. The commercial success of Durer’s image reflected the excitement that had been created by the animal’s arrival. This is an accurate representation. Together with other precious gifts of silver plate and spices, the rhinoceros, with its new collar of green velvet decorated with flowers, embarked in December 1515 for the voyage from the Tagus to Rome. 3 vols I … It is the mortal enemy of the elephant. [2] Dürer never saw the actual rhinoceros, which was the first living example seen in Europe since Roman times. [11] Many further printings followed after Dürer's death in 1528, including two in the 1540s, and two more in the late 16th century. It was regarded by Westerners as a true representation of a rhinoceros into the late 18th century. This famous sketch of a rhinoceros was created in 1515 by the influential German artist, Albrecht Dürer, reflecting the growing interest in foreign curiosities that had emerged in tangent with the overseas voyages of exploration, commerce and conquest by the Spanish and Portuguese. The woodcut was, per Quammen, p.204, cut on the block by a specialist craftsman known as a, Rough translation of the German original. The earliest known image of the animal illustrates a poemetto by Florentine Giovanni Giacomo Penni, published in Rome on 13 July 1515, fewer than eight weeks after its arrival in Lisbon. Some reports say that the mounted skin was sent to Rome, arriving in February 1516, to be exhibited impagliato (Italian for "stuffed with straw"), although such a feat would have challenged 16th-century methods of taxidermy, which were still primitive.