[13] The only known copy of the original published poem is held by the Institución Colombina in Seville. It was regarded by Westerners as a true representation of a rhinoceros into the late 18th century. He places a small twisted horn on its back and gives it scaly legs and saw-like rear quarters. But when Dürer’s rhinoceros arrived in Lisbon, things weren’t quite so straightforward. [25][26] and printed a reversed reflection of it.[20][27]. Despite its anatomical inaccuracies, Dürer's woodcut became very popular in Europe and was copied many times in the following three centuries. 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. His form is here represented. It is an emblem of the world of his time. It is the size of an elephant but has shorter legs and is almost invulnerable. 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. 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. [40][50], Some sources erroneously say 1513, copying a typographical error made by Dürer in one of his original drawings and perpetuated in his woodcut. Le Rhinocéros de Dürer est une gravure sur bois d’Albrecht Dürer datée de 1515.L’image est fondée sur une description écrite et un bref croquis par un artiste inconnu d’un rhinocéros indien (Rhinoceros unicornis) débarqué à Lisbonne plus tôt dans l’année. The rhinoceros travelled in a ship full of spices. (23.8 x 29.9 cm) Classification: Prints. After the fall of the Roman Empire, Asian animals previously imported for circuses and gladitorial events became scarce or non-existent in Western Europe. The Rhinoceros is a Northern Renaissance Wood Block Print Print created by Albrecht Dürer in 1515. 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. Work location: Deutsch: Nürnberg, Augsburg, Venedig, Niederlande. 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. Albrecht Dürer had a showman’s instincts for killer subject matter. Manuel decided to give the rhinoceros as a gift to the Medici Pope Leo X. Bois) (Bartsch's Le Peintre Graveur) 75 (A History of the World in 100 Objects) 160 (Albrecht Dürer: Complete woodcuts) C. D. 125 (Catalogue of Early German and Flemish Woodcuts in the British Museum, Vol. (Bedini, p.121.). The woodcut was, per Quammen, p.204, cut on the block by a specialist craftsman known as a, Rough translation of the German original. A rhinoceros that was clearly based on Dürer's woodcut was chosen by Alessandro de' Medici as his emblem in June 1536, with the motto "Non vuelvo sin vencer" (old Spanish for "I shall not return without victory"). The previous year, the Pope had been very pleased with Manuel's gift of a white elephant, also from India, which the Pope had named Hanno. Brought from India to the great and powerful King Emanuel of Portugal at Lisbon a live animal called a rhinoceros. Albrecht Durer. Home Biography Rhinoceros Legacy of Durer Bibliography Biography Education. Dimensions: image: 8 3/8 x 11 5/8 in. [29], Dürer's woodcut is not an accurate representation of a rhinoceros. [33] His image is truer to life, omitting Dürer's more fanciful additions and including the shackles and chain used to restrain the rhinoceros;[33] however, Dürer's woodcut is more powerful and eclipsed Burgkmair's in popularity. It was housed in King Manuel's menagerie at the Ribeira Palace in Lisbon, separate from his elephants and other large beasts at the Estaus Palace. [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. 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. On the other hand, his depiction of the texture may represent dermatitis induced by the rhinoceros' close confinement during the four-month journey by ship from India to Portugal. When Durer was young he le arned how to be a goldsmith like his father. He also assures the viewer that “This is an accurate representation”. See Clarke, p.19, for a photograph of a gargoyle. 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. Only one impression (example) of Burgkmair's image has survived,[34] whereas Dürer's print survives in many impressions. It has been said of Dürer's woodcut: "probably no animal picture has exerted such a profound influence on the arts".[7]. The tower was later decorated with gargoyles shaped as rhinoceros heads under its corbels. In particular, Oudry's painting was the inspiration for a plate in Buffon's encyclopedic Histoire naturelle, which was widely copied. [3][4], Dürer's woodcut is not an entirely accurate representation of a rhinoceros. . In early 1514, Afonso de Albuquerque, governor of Portuguese India, sent ambassadors to Sultan Muzaffar Shah II, ruler of Cambay (modern Gujarat), to seek permission to build a fort on the island of Diu. The geometrical overlays reminiscent of Duerer are another recurrent theme in Manfred Klein's work. His woodcuts had made him one of the most famous and successful artists in Europe. [31] Dürer also draws a scaly texture over the body of the animal, including the "armour". The carcass of the rhinoceros was recovered near Villefranche, and its hide was returned to Lisbon, where it was stuffed. 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. Cole, F.J. (Francis Joseph), "The History of Albrecht Durer's Rhinoceros in Zoological Literature," essay in Underwood, E. Ashworth (ed. Dürer was born in Germany in 1471 and in his teenage years he became an apprentice to his father. The thick folded skin of the Indian rhinoceros has been portrayed as something more like armour plating. ), This page was last edited on 28 December 2020, at 23:58. Albrecht Dürer, a German painter and printmaker living in Nuremberg, was captivated by the strangeness of the animal. ^ Some sources erroneously say 1513, copying a typographical error made by Dürer in one of his original drawings and perpetuated in his woodcut. He made his own drawing of the animal and soon produced the woodcut that proved to be one of the most commercially successful of its time. 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. [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. 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. [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. He did this until until he was 15 and started training with Michael Wolgemut. Original upload log (suppr) (actu) 17 juin 2005 à 22:56 . 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. A fine example was sold at Christie's New York in 2013 for $866,500, setting a new auction record for the artist. [41] A sculpture of a rhinoceros based on Dürer's image was placed at the base of a 70-foot (21 m) high obelisk designed by Jean Goujon and erected in front of the Church of the Sepulchre in the rue Saint-Denis in Paris in 1549 for the royal entry welcoming the arrival of the new King of France, Henry II. [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. English: The Rhinoceros is a woodcut Albrecht Dürer made from a description provided him. His skill can be seen in the delicate shading and the intricate patterning of the animal’s hide. The animal had been shipped to Lisbon in 1515 as a gift to King Manuel I of Portugal by Afonso de Albequerque the governor of Portuguese India. Rhinocéros dessiné par Albrecht Dürer en 1515. 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. 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. 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. It has a strong pointed horn on the tip of its nose, which it sharpens on stones. [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. He did see descriptions of the animal, and even a sketch, sent from Lisbon to Nuremburg by eyewitnesses. Medium: Woodcut. 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. [37][38] The resulting chiaroscuro woodcut, which entirely omitted the text, was published after 1620. A duel between a rhinocerus and an elephant? It lives at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Albuquerque decided to forward the gift, known by its Gujarati name of genda, and its Indian keeper, named Ocem, to King Manuel I of Portugal. Albrecht Dürer. 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. Dürer produced a first edition of his woodcut in 1515, in the first state, which is distinguished by only five lines of text in the heading. It has the colour of a speckled tortoise and it is covered with thick scales. [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." 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. Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the great German artist Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528) who achieved fame throughout Europe for the power of his images. King Francis I of France was returning from Saint-Maximin-la-Sainte-Baume in Provence, and requested a viewing of the beast. 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. Find more prominent pieces of animal painting at Wikiart.org – best visual art database. The rhinoceros, chained and shackled to the deck to keep it under control, was unable to swim to safety and drowned. It sailed on the Nossa Senhora da Ajuda,[9] which left Goa in January 1515. It was to be housed in the King’s menagerie at the Ribeira Palace in Lisbon. [35] Later printings have six lines of descriptive text. Consequently, the historical impact of the woodcut was enormous. He made a pen and ink drawing 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. 136; M., Holl. 3 vols I … ‘Rhinoceros’ was created in 1515 by Albrecht Durer in Northern Renaissance style. Hear about the contest held by Manuel I of Portugal. 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. The mission returned without an agreement, but diplomatic gifts were exchanged, including the rhinoceros. [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. [11], The block passed into the hands of the Amsterdam printer and cartographer Willem Janssen (also called Willem Blaeu amongst other names). [36] Janssen decided to re-issue the block with the addition of a new tone block printed in a variety of colours, olive-green and dark green, as well as blue-grey. [8] At that time, the rulers of different countries would occasionally send each other exotic animals to be kept in a menagerie. He also assures the viewer that “This is an accurate representation”. Manfred Klein. 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. The animal was examined by scholars and the curious, and letters describing the fantastic creature were sent to correspondents throughout Europe. Rhinoceros. Both of these paintings were more accurate than Dürer's woodcut, and a more realistic conception of the rhinoceros gradually started to displace Dürer's image in the public imagination. 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. Good surviving impressions are rare, however. [32], A second woodcut was executed by Hans Burgkmair in Augsburg around the same time as Dürer's in Nuremberg. Europe was witnessing a revolution in how the animal kingdom was perceived. In the context of the Renaissance, it was a piece of classical antiquity which had been rediscovered, like a statue or an inscription. Curator Susan Dackerman reveals the story behind the creation of Albrecht Dürer's famous "Rhinoceros" woodcut. None of these features is present in a real rhinoceros. [42] A similar rhinoceros, in relief, decorates a panel in one of the bronze west doors of Pisa Cathedral. Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528), « Le Rhinocerus de Lisbonne », 1515, xylographie sur papier, 21,4×29,8. [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. The commercial success of Durer’s image reflected the excitement that had been created by the animal’s arrival. Its arrival caused a sensation and attracted crowds of visitors for several months eager to see for themselves an exotic creature from antiquity that had been newly rediscovered. Albrecht Dürer The Rhinoceros (B. All Rights Reserved. Albrecht Dürer never saw a rhinoceros in real life. 241; S.M.S. 473x327 (35929 octets) ( fr:Rhinocéros Rhinocéros dessiné par fr:Albrecht_Dürer Albrecht Dürer en fr:1515 1515. Albuquerque passed the gift on to Dom Manuel I, the king of Portugal. ‎Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the great German artist Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528) who achieved fame throughout Europe for the power of his images. 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 image is available via Institutional Open Content, and tagged Animals. Whereas, in the past, the study of zoology had been guided by classical authorities, there was a growing sense that firsthand observation was also of vital importance. 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. [2] Dürer never saw the actual rhinoceros, which was the first living example seen in Europe since Roman times. Artist: Albrecht Dürer (German, Nuremberg 1471–1528 Nuremberg) Date: 1515. [37] This was the seventh of the eight editions in all of the print. He also notes that the skin of a rhinoceros is rougher than it visually appears and that such plates and scales portray this non-visual information to a degree. 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. Rhinocerus (Rhinoceros) by Albrecht Dürer. His decision to issue the image as a woodcut made it accessible to many more people eager to experience something of that excitement. Dürer never saw the animal himself, but the woodcut he prepared became so famous that for two centuries it was the only rhinoceros Europeans ever saw. 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. Dürer hatte das Nashorn selbst nie gesehen. 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. The rhinoceros had been given as a gift by the ruler of Cambaia to Afonso de Albuquerque, the Portuguese … [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. [35][39] There is an example in the British Museum. [22] A second letter of unknown authorship was sent from Lisbon to Nuremberg at around the same time, enclosing a sketch by an unknown artist. 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. La imagen se basaba en … Provenance. The excitement of Europe’s expanding horizons and ambitions as well as its increasing knowledge and understanding of the wider world and of nature. 1. Credit Line: Gift of Junius Spencer Morgan, 1919. [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]. The original document in German has not survived, but a transcript in Italian is held in the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale in Florence. 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. 136 (Grav. [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". Albrecht Durer. But Durer’s “Rhinoceros” is more than just the depiction of an exotic beast. Rhinoceros . Accession Number: 19.73.159. Discover and collect art from Albrecht Dürer’s iconic The Rhinoceros series and more. This image of a gift from a colonial governor to his king reflects a confidently expansionist Europe intent on bringing what it saw as its own superior civilisation to a world outside Europe that it thought savage and ignorant. After resuming its journey, the ship was wrecked in a sudden storm as it passed through the narrows of Porto Venere, north of La Spezia on the coast of Liguria. 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. The rhinoceros was already well accustomed to being kept in captivity. So he began to a prepare a pen sketch relying on the written description and the sketch made by an unknown artist. The ruler of Gujarat, Sultan Muzafar II (1511-26) had presented it to Alfonso d'Albuquerque, the governor of Portuguese India. 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's Rhinoceros Can you make a visual representation of something you've never actually seen? (21.3 x 29.5 cm) trimmed to block line except at top sheet: 9 3/8 x 11 3/4 in. This may be Dürer's attempt to reflect the rough and almost hairless hide of the Indian rhinoceros, which has wart-like bumps covering its upper legs and shoulders. The rhinoceros is so well-armed that the elephant cannot harm it. 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. Schulfilm zu "Rhinocerus", einem Werk des Nürnberger Künstlers Albrecht Dürer aus dem Jahre 1515. He places a small twisted horn on its back and gives it scaly legs and saw-like rear quarters. [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. 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. Rhinoceros. [49], Although very popular, few prints have survived and impressions of the first edition are very rare. 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. [17] The vessel passed near Marseille in early 1516. Durer never saw the rhinoceros himself. From David Tunick, Inc., Albrecht Dürer, The Rhinoceros (1515), Woodcut on laid paper, 8 1/2 × 11 3/4 in 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. 1) 299 (Kurth's Complete Woodcuts of Albrecht Dürer) . [11] Many further printings followed after Dürer's death in 1528, including two in the 1540s, and two more in the late 16th century. [23] Dürer – who was acquainted with the Portuguese community of the factory at Antwerp[24] – saw the second letter and sketch in Nuremberg. [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. 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.