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How Did an Imaginary Rhino Sell for $866,500?

"Probably no animal picture has exerted such a profound influence on the arts"

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Published

Apr 24, 2019

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Rembrandt van Rijn

Albrecht Dürer

Today, it’s not unusual for a ten year old to know what a rhinoceros looks like. She might even know that they’re herbivores, that they can weigh over a ton—maybe she’s even seen one in person. But centuries ago, in the most prosperous parts of the world, even aristocracy couldn’t conjure an image of the leathery ungulates. Or, if they could, it was fictional, a fantasy. In fact, for much of the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries, the greater Western world referenced a single depiction that was completely bogus. And it was all thanks to the breathtaking imagination of Albrecht Dürer.

The RhinocerosAlbrecht Dürer
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Centuries ago, before world leaders used televised pleasantries to display their allyship, they traded exotic animals. Lions, elephants, seals—the larger and weirder, the better. And so when, in the early 1500s, Portugal established a state in present day India, the new governor, Afonso de Albuquerque, sent an Indian rhinoceros to King Manuel I of Portugal. Rhinos were considered somewhat mythical; they hadn’t been seen in Europe since Roman times. So the gift was the cause of a great deal of anticipation—an anticipation that had time to build, given the voyage took 120 days. When it arrived, in springtime, letters were sent throughout Europe describing it. The earliest known illustration (below) accompanied a poem by Giovanni Giacomo Penni.

An illustration for a poem by Giovanni Giacomo Penni (Biblioteca Colombina, Seville).

One such drawing (which may have been more or less detailed than this) made its way to the great German painter and printmaker Albrecht Dürer, who brought it to life in the form of a woodcut. (Woodcuts predated more modern ways of reproducing images, and made mass proliferation remarkably easy and cheap.) Dürer’s inscription, which passed along some misinformation (more on that later), also stated, “This is an accurate representation.” It was not. His rhino seems to have an extra horn, natural armor, a breastplate, and a few other anthropomorphizations. There were more accurate illustrations (such as that by Hans Burgkmair, below), but Dürer’s was more powerful (no doubt owing to its fancifulness), and became the most popular likeness. It struck a chord by engaging not just the general public’s curiosity in science, but their fascination with detailed animal portraits. (The famous geologist T.H. Clarke would say, centuries later, “probably no animal picture has exerted such a profound influence on the arts.”) Dürer’s depiction was reproduced in textbooks and sculptures throughout Europe, and soon became the defining image of the animal for centuries—up until the late 1700s, when other rhinos were shipped to Europe, and more faithful renderings supplanted Dürer’s.

A woodcut by Hans Burgkmair

Despite the image’s popularity, very few of the first edition prints made from Dürer’s woodcut survived. And so when one came under auction at Christie’s in January of 2013, it was estimated to fetch $100,00 to $150,000. It auctioned for over five times that amount—the all-time high for the artist.

“This woodcut is rare today generally, but even more significant is the fact that this impression was from the first state of eight; the other seven states were posthumous,” says Catherine Scallen, Associate Professor of Art History at Case Western Reserve University (and a specialist in Northern Renaissance and Baroque art). “While the Dürer prints were billed by Christie’s as ‘masterpieces from a private collection,’ leaving the seller anonymous, it was widely believed (and later confirmed) that they came from the esteemed collection of Samuel Josefowitz of Switzerland. The Rhinoceros did not have the highest pre-sale estimate, but the fantastic nature of Dürer’s imagined rhinoceros, its secular subject matter, its rarity, and good condition all likely influenced the bidders.”

Scallen says we shouldn’t discount the print’s provenance. “Josefowitz died in 2015; one of his superb Rembrandt prints, the large drypoint Christ Presented to the People from 1655, also set an Old Master auction record when sold at Christie’s in July 2018.”

Christ Presented to the PeopleRembrandt van Rijn
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The rhino in question ended up in Portugal for only six months—albeit an eventful six months. Pliny the Elder had posited that elephants and rhinos were mortal enemies, and so King Manuel I put the two to battle. The rhinoceros seemed game, but the elephant, potentially upset by the commotion around the spectacle itself, fled. (This made its way into Dürer’s woodcut: “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. The rhinoceros is so well-armed that the elephant cannot harm it. It is said that the rhinoceros is fast, impetuous and cunning.”)

In December of 1515, the same year the rhino arrived, King Manuel I sent it to the Medici Pope Leo X, in the hopes of gaining his favor. (Manuel needed the Pope to renew his exclusive rights to explore the Far East.) The transferring ship fell to a storm on the coast of Italy, and the rhino, tied down and unable to swim, drowned. The carcass was discovered in Villefranche and brought back to Portugal to be stuffed (this report is disputed).

If the animal and Dürer’s depiction didn’t share anatomy, they did share one truth: popularity doesn’t necessarily make preservation any easier. It’s funny to consider a world in which the rhino stuck around Portugal, long enough for a more faithful rendering to emerge. In this case, its fictional interpretation, or what we have of it today, would likely be worth nothing.

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