


The ship, captained by Francisco Pereira Coutinho, and two companion vessels, all loaded with exotic spices, sailed across the Indian Ocean, around the Cape of Good Hope and north through the Atlantic, stopping briefly in Mozambique, Saint Helena and the Azores.Īfter a relatively fast voyage of 120 days, the rhinoceros was finally unloaded in Portugal, near the site where the Manueline Belém Tower was under construction. It sailed on the Nossa Senhora da Ajuda, which left Goa in January 1515. Albuquerque decided to forward the gift, known by its Gujarati name of genda, and its Indian keeper, named Ocem, to King Manuel I of Portugal. The rhinoceros was already well accustomed to being kept in captivity. At that time, the rulers of different countries would occasionally send each other exotic animals to be kept in a menagerie. The mission returned without an agreement, but diplomatic gifts were exchanged, including the rhinoceros. In early 1514, Afonso de Albuquerque, governor of Portuguese India, sent ambassadors to Sultan Muzaffar Shah II, ruler of Cambay (modern Gujarat), to seek permission to build a fort on the island of Diu. On, an Indian rhinoceros arrived in Lisbon from the Far East. The first known print of the rhinoceros is a rather primitive woodcut which illustrates a poem by Giovanni Giacomo Penni published in Rome in July 1515. It has been said of Dürer's woodcut: "probably no animal picture has exerted such a profound influence on the arts". Eventually, it was supplanted by more realistic drawings and paintings, particularly those of Clara the rhinoceros, who toured Europe in the 1740s and 1750s. It was regarded by Westerners as a true representation of a rhinoceros into the late 18th century. Despite its anatomical inaccuracies, Dürer's woodcut became very popular in Europe and was copied many times in the following three centuries.
#Clearing memory rhinoceros 5 skin
None of these features is present in a real rhinoceros, although the Indian rhinoceros does have deep folds in its skin that can look like armor from a distance.

He places a small twisted horn on its back and gives it scaly legs and saw-like rear quarters. He depicts an animal with hard plates that cover its body like sheets of armour, with a gorget at the throat, a solid-looking breastplate, and what appear to be rivets along the seams. ĭürer's woodcut is not an entirely accurate representation of a rhinoceros. A live rhinoceros was not seen again in Europe until a second specimen, named Abada, arrived from India at the court of Sebastian of Portugal in 1577, being later inherited by Philip II of Spain around 1580. In late 1515, the King of Portugal, Manuel I, sent the animal as a gift for Pope Leo X, but it died in a shipwreck off the coast of Italy in early 1516. Dürer never saw the actual rhinoceros, which was the first living example seen in Europe since Roman times. The image is based on a written description and brief sketch by an unknown artist of an Indian rhinoceros that had arrived in Lisbon in 1515.

This impression, National Gallery of Art, Washingtonĭürer's Rhinoceros is the name commonly given to a woodcut executed by German painter and printmaker Albrecht Dürer in 1515.
