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DÜRER Albrecht

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"The Rhinoceros", 1515. Woodcut. 210 x 294 mm (square line). Ref: Bartsch no. 136. Meder no. 273.4. Hollstein no. 273d. On May 20, 1515, an Indian rhinoceros landed in Lisbon. The first of its kind to set foot on European soil, the pachyderm, presented as a diplomatic gift to King Manuel I by the Sultan of Gujarat, fascinated and captivated. In the port of Lisbon, merchants, scientists and the curious multiplied sketches of the animal. One of them, along with a description sent to the Nuremberg Merchants' Guild by the printer Valentin Ferdinand, reached the hands of Albrecht Dürer. The artist seized upon it and delivered one of his most famous prints. This one, however, is very different from the naturalistic representations for which the German master is renowned. Unable to observe the beast in vivo, Dürer used a decorative style, aided by the woodcut technique, and gave free rein to his imagination. He didn't hesitate to endow the animal with a narwhal tooth and cover its legs with reptilian scales. "Erwin Panofsky writes: "Dürer turns this creature, already bizarre in itself, into an extraordinary stylized assemblage of scales, plates and carapaces, evoking a fantastic suit of armor. Dürer's print, which could hardly be less realistic, corroborates medieval literature on the rhinoceros. Largely indebted to Pliny the Elder's Natural History, these describe an exotic and ferocious creature, "the elephant's mortal enemy". From the outset, the image enjoyed immense popularity, and no fewer than eight editions were produced between the 16th and 17th centuries. Dürer's Rhinoceros established itself as a lasting archetype, used to illustrate scientific and encyclopedic works: as early as 1516, we find a copy in Martin Waldseemüller's Carta marina, then in 1551, in Conrad Gessner's Historia Animalium, as well as in Edward Topsell's History of Four-Footed Beasts (1607). Until the middle of the 18th century, the plate served as a reference for zoological works.

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