Description:

inscribed in pencil, lower right: no. 10
pen and brown ink
95 x 140 mm

Provenance:

Private collection, Europe

Note:

Albrecht Dürer's woodcut print of a rhinoceros is as iconic as it is inaccurate. Created in 1515, without the artist ever having seen a rhinoceros for himself, the engraved animal sports an extra horn on its back and armoured plates instead of thick skin. Dürer's rhinoceros was based on a written account and a sketch, likely sent by the German-born printer Valentim Fernandes, yet the image still shaped Western perceptions of the animal for nearly three hundred years. It wasn’t until a touring rhino called Miss Clara became a media sensation in the late-eighteenth century that images of the rhinoceros’ true form were more widely disseminated. Like Dürer, the author of the present drawing had never seen a rhinoceros. This drawing, likely produced in the early 17th century, is a testament to Dürer’s prevailing influence, and can be compared to another 17th century copy in the Universitätsbibliothek Erlangen-Nürnberg.