Albrecht Dürer
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Albrecht Dürer

The Rhinoceros (B. 136; M., Holl. 241; S.M.S. 241)

Details
Albrecht Dürer
The Rhinoceros
(B. 136; M., Holl. 241; S.M.S. 241)
woodcut with letterpress text, 1515, watermark Anchor in Circle (M. 171), a very good impression of this rare and important woodcut, first edition (of eight), with the complete letterpress text above, with thread margins or trimmed to the borderline at left and right, trimmed just inside the borderline below and to the text above, a small abrasion in the monogram, otherwise in good condition
S. 9¼ x 11¾ in. (235 x 298 mm.)
Provenance
Sotheby's, London, 15 April 1920, lot 139.
With Colnaghi's, London (their stocknumber C. 5548 in pencil verso), purchased at the above sale, sold on 31 March 1955 to Knoedler, New York.
Special notice
On occasion, Christie's has a direct financial interest in the outcome of the sale of certain lots consigned for sale. This will usually be where it has guaranteed to the Seller that whatever the outcome of the auction, the Seller will receive a minimum sale price for the work. This is known as a minimum price guarantee. This is such a lot.

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Richard Lloyd
Richard Lloyd

Lot Essay

In May 1515, a rhinoceros, the first seen in Europe since antiquity, arrived in Lisbon as a gift from Sultan Muzafar of Cambay, to Emanuel I, King of Portugal. Emanuel intended to present the animal to Pope Leo X, but first a fight was arranged between it and an elephant. This was to verify the reports of classical writers that the rhinoceros would attack and kill the larger beast. The contest ended by default, as the elephant fled upon seeing its adversary. The rhinoceros was sent off to Rome, but its ship was wrecked in the Gulf of Genoa and the animal drowned. It had to be forwarded to the Pope stuffed.

Dürer never saw a rhinoceros in any form. He learned of it from a sketch and description sent by Valentin Ferdinand, a Moravian printer who had settled in Lisbon, to a friend in Nuremberg. Although the sketch has failed to survive, the inscription on the woodcut is worded as if it were a literal transcription of the report sent from Lisbon:

'In the year 1513 [sic] A.D., on May 1, there was brought to Emanuel of Lisbon, the great powerful king of Portugal, such a living animal from India. They call it a rhinoceros. It is represented here in its complete form. It has the color of a speckled turtle. And it is almost entirely covered by a thick shell. And in size it is like an elephant but lower on its legs, and almost invulnerable. It has a sharp strong horn on its nose, which it starts to sharpen whenever it is near stones. The stupid animal is the mortal enemy of the elephant. The elephant fears it terribly, because when they encounter, it runs with its head down between its front legs and fatally rips open the stomach of the elephant which is unable to protect itself. Because the animal is so well armed, the elephant cannot do anything to it. They also say that the rhinoceros is fast, lively and clever.'

Dürer's The Rhinoceros, which might pass for a terrible war machine, made a tremendous impact. The woodblock was put through no fewer than eight editions, seven of which were posthumous. Around 1620 it was printed in Amsterdam together with a tone block, producing a chiaroscuro woodcut like the portrait of Ulrich Varnbüler (lot 60). The Rhinoceros served as the model for illustrations of the species as late as the end of the 18th century.

Although presumably printed in larger quantities, impressions of it were so popular and must have been passed around so much, that very few prints survived and impressions from the first edition are very rare.

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