In an inscription below the drawing, Dürer recorded information about the rhinoceros and its arrival in Lisbon.
Dürer first made a sketch of the animal in pen and ink. In the subsequent months, Dürer would likely have read a description of the rhinoceros, and he may have even seen another artist’s renderings.įor Dürer, news of the rhinoceros would have sparked both his creative and journalistic impulses. The animal’s appearance in Lisbon was such a momentous event that it was chronicled by many. The rhinoceros endured a long journey, transported in a ship filled with spices. Sultan Muzafar II, the ruler of present-day Gujarat, had offered the Indian rhino as a gift to the king of Portugal. In 1515, for the first time in a millennia, a rhinoceros stepped foot in Europe. It was not uncommon for Dürer to go out of his way to observe a new species, traveling throughout his life to see a baboon, a lion, and even a beached whale. These studies were sometimes developed for a print or a painting, but many of them are exquisite works of art in their own right. If this rhinoceros looks a little funny, with whiskers under his chin and scale-covered plates, it is because Albrecht Dürer, the great Northern Renaissance artist and thinker who created this print, had never actually seen one.ĭürer was a deeply curious artist, and he made many sketches and watercolors of birds, fish, and other animals. In the age of Instagram, it is easy to forget that there was a time-in fact, most of time-when information about what an animal looked like was passed between continents by sketches and word of mouth.
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