The Rhinoceros 1515

Albrecht Durer created this woodcut of a rhinoceros in 1515. The image is based on a written description and a sketch by someone else, since Durer himself never actually saw the animal. The rhinoceros had arrived in Lisbon earlier that year, sent from India as a gift to King Manuel I of Portugal. Though Durer's image wasn't based on first-hand experience, it quickly became the definitive representation of the animal across Europe for centuries. The image creates meaning through a combination of observation and imagination. For example, Durer gave the rhino scale-like armor and a small horn on its back, based on the written accounts he received. Today, historians use a range of sources, including scientific studies of animal anatomy as well as social and cultural histories of artistic production, to understand how and why this image became so iconic. The meaning of art, it turns out, is deeply rooted in social and institutional contexts.