Dürer saw a selection of Meso-American treasures on a trip to Brussels in August 1520. According to an entry in his travel diary, he had ‘not seen anything in [his] whole life that delighted [his] heart as much as these… marvellously artistic things’.
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Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528), Rhinoceros, 1515. Woodcut on laid paper. Block and sheet: 212 x 300 mm. Sold for £604,800 on 13 October 2023 at Christie’s in London
A few years earlier, Portuguese adventurers had caused an even greater sensation by transporting a rhinoceros to Europe from India for their king, Manuel I. Dürer never saw the animal himself, but capitalised on the furore about it — producing a woodcut image of the rhino based on a sketch by a German merchant in Lisbon. Dürer’s version came with numerous fanciful additions intended to fire the viewer’s imagination — including folds of skin that looked like armour.
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