# The Rhinoceros > Albrecht Durer - 1515 (Durer's design and the block's first printing, in his lifetime); this sheet printed c. 1618-1622, the sixth of eight editions taken from the same woodblock > Canonical HTML: https://iconotheca.com/artworks/albrecht-durer/durer-the-rhinoceros/ > Published by Servola Systems GmbH. Last verified: 2026-08-11 ## Tombstone - **Artist:** Albrecht Durer - **Date:** 1515 (Durer's design and the block's first printing, in his lifetime); this sheet printed c. 1618-1622, the sixth of eight editions taken from the same woodblock - **Medium:** Woodcut on paper, with accompanying letterpress text; the text on this sheet is in Dutch, reset for this edition by its publisher - **Dimensions:** Sheet 212 x 299 mm (8 3/8 x 11 3/4 in) - **Object type:** Print - **Period:** German, early sixteenth century (Northern Renaissance); this impression Dutch, early seventeenth century - **Current location:** Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam - **Attribution:** accepted ## Summary In 1515 Albrecht Durer drew and cut a woodcut of an animal he never saw, working from a written description and a rough sketch that had traveled from Lisbon to Nuremberg describing an Indian rhinoceros sent as a diplomatic gift to the Portuguese crown. The print is wrong in specific, documented ways - an extra twisted horn on the shoulder, hide rendered as riveted armor plate - and it became the standard European image of a rhinoceros for two centuries anyway, reprinted from Durer's own woodblock long after his death.This sheet is one of those later reprints: the sixth of eight editions pulled from the block, printed roughly a century after Durer cut it by the Hague publisher Hendrick Hondius the Elder, with the original German text replaced by Dutch. The new text corrects an error present on every earlier edition, the wrong arrival year, and in the same breath commits a new one, telling readers Durer drew the animal from life. He did not. That single sheet, now in the Rijksmuseum, carries the whole problem this print poses in miniature: a documented factual correction sitting next to a documented new fabrication, both printed from a block that was, by then, a hundred years into a working life that would run for at least a century more. ## Provenance Every link carries a grade. `documented` means a cited source supports it, `disputed` means the identification is argued but not established, `unknown` means we have no owner for that span and have not bridged it. - **1515** Albrecht Durer, Nuremberg (the woodblock and its first printing) `[documented]` (creation) Durer cut the block and printed its first edition in 1515, working from a written description and a secondhand sketch that had reached Nuremberg from Lisbon. The block remained his property and, after his death in 1528, presumably that of his estate or workshop successors, though no source consulted names an owner for the block in the decades immediately after his death. - **1528-c. 1618** Unrecorded intermediaries `[unknown]` (gap) The block was used for at least four further editions between the 1540s and the late sixteenth century, and so was in active commercial use somewhere in German- or Dutch-speaking Europe throughout this span, but no source consulted names who owned or operated it at any point in this century-long interval before it reached Hendrick Hondius. - **c. 1618-c. 1622** Hendrick Hondius the Elder, The Hague (the woodblock, for this printing) `[documented]` (printing) Hondius published the sixth edition from Durer's original block, replacing the earlier German text with new Dutch text that corrected the arrival date to 1515 but introduced the false claim that Durer had drawn the animal from life. This is the printing event that produced the specific sheet described in this record. The Rijksmuseum's own catalogue entry is the source for the publisher and this date range. - **undated** Unidentified collector (mark catalogued as Lugt 240) `[unknown]` (ownership) The sheet carries a stamped collectors' mark catalogued by Frits Lugt as number 240. The Rijksmuseum's own online entry does not identify the collector to whom this mark belonged, and this record has not been able to establish the identity or a date from the sources consulted. - **-present** Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam `[unknown]` (acquisition) The sheet is held today in the Rijksmuseum's print collection under object number RP-P-OB-1473. The museum's own online catalogue entry does not state the date or source of acquisition, and this record does not supply one it cannot document. ## Auction results Hammer and buyer's premium are stated separately. Where a source conflates them this record says so. - **2013-01-30** Christie's, New York - Estimate: USD 100,000 - 150,000 - Hammer: Not separately stated in the sources consulted - With premium: Not separately stated in the sources consulted - A first-edition impression, printed in Durer's own lifetime with the original German text, described as in excellent condition. Sold for a total of 866,500 dollars, the auction record for any work by Durer at the time. Sources consulted give only the combined total; this record does not back-calculate a hammer price from a general premium schedule not stated as applying to this specific lot. - **2006-10-31** Swann Auction Galleries, New York, sale 2091, lot 18, lot 18 - Estimate: USD 15,000 - 20,000 - Hammer: USD 10,000 - With premium: USD 2,250 - A fourth-edition impression, described in the auction listing as evenly printed, carrying a crowned-shield-and-three-fleur-de-lys watermark. Hammer price and buyer's premium are both independently documented for this sale, giving a total price realized of 12,250 dollars. - **2020-02-18** Freeman's, Philadelphia - Estimate: USD 12,000 - 18,000 - Hammer: Not separately stated in the sources consulted - With premium: Not separately stated in the sources consulted - A sixth-edition impression - the same edition as the Rijksmuseum sheet described in this record, though a different physical sheet - sold for a total of 81,250 dollars. The source consulted gives only the combined total. ## Open questions - What happened to the taxidermied rhinoceros hide after it was reportedly returned to Rome by February 1516? The sources consulted offer only two undocumented possibilities, a later move to Florence with the Medici or destruction in the 1527 Sack of Rome, and do not resolve between them. - Who wrote the second Lisbon letter that enclosed the sketch Durer actually worked from, and was its author connected to Valentim Fernandes or independent of him? The sources consulted describe the letter's author as unknown. - Whose collectors' mark, catalogued as Lugt 240, is stamped on the Rijksmuseum sheet examined in this record? Not identified in the sources consulted. - When and from whom did the Rijksmuseum acquire this sheet? Not stated in the museum's own online catalogue entry. - Was the armor-like plating on the rhinoceros's hide meant to depict real ceremonial armor made for its staged fight with Manuel I's elephant, the animal's own heavy skin folds, or a skin condition from months of shipboard confinement? Named scholars have proposed each explanation and the sources consulted do not resolve between them. - What are the precise dates and any surviving provenance for the second, third, fourth, and fifth editions of the print, printed between the 1540s and the late sixteenth century? The sources consulted describe their existence but not their individual publishers, print runs, or dates more precisely than by decade. - Was the hammer price of the record 866,500-dollar Christie's sale of 30 January 2013 ever published separately from the buyer's premium? Not found in the sources consulted. ## Sources - [1] Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, catalogue entry for Rhinocerus (Neushoorn), object number RP-P-OB-1473. - [2] Wikipedia, 'Durer's Rhinoceros'. Tertiary source, flagged for replacement with T.H. Clarke, The Rhinoceros from Durer to Stubbs (Sotheby's Publications, 1986), the standard scholarly monograph on this print and its later history. - [3] Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, collection object page for The Rhinoceros, accession 19.73.159. - [4] British Museum, London, collection object page for the preparatory drawing for The Rhinoceros, registration SL,5218.161. - [5] 'The Making of Durer's Rhinoceros', Doing History in Public (2025), on the transmission of the Lisbon report to Nuremberg via Valentim Fernandes. - [6] Wikipedia, 'Valentim Fernandes', for his biography and career as a printer in Lisbon. - [7] British Museum, London, collection object page for The Rhinoceros, first edition, registration 1895,0122.714. - [8] Library of Congress, Preservation Directorate, 'Technical Examination and Conservation of Durer's Rhinoceros', on the Hendrick Hondius sixth edition, its Dutch text, and its combined date correction and new error about Durer working from life. - [9] JSTOR Daily, 'Durer's Rhinoceros and the Birth of Print Media', summarizing Jesse Feiman's research on the print's changing states. - [10] Jesse Feiman, 'The Matrix and the Meaning in Durer's Rhinoceros', Art in Print, vol. 2, no. 4 (November-December 2012). - [11] Princeton University Art Museum, collection object page for The Rhinoceros, accession 2010-149. - [12] James Parsons, 'A Letter to Martin Folkes, Esq., President of the Royal Society, Containing the Natural History of the Rhinoceros', Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society 42 (1743): 523-541. - [13] Emma Hanson, 'Representing the Rhinoceros: The Royal Society between Art and Science in the Eighteenth Century', Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies 33, no. 3 (2010). - [14] Wikipedia, 'Albrecht Durer'. Tertiary source, flagged for replacement with a scholarly Durer biography. - [15] Wikipedia entry for Durer's Rhinoceros, section on the preparatory drawing and its 1513 inscription date, cross-checked against the British Museum's own object record (source 4). - [16] British Museum, London, collection object page for The Rhinoceros, first edition, registration 1895,0122.714, for the letterpress text's dependence on Pliny. - [17] Bloomberg, 'Durer 'Rhino' Sells for Record $866,500 at Christie's NYC', 29 January 2013. - [18] The Hot Bid, 'Albrecht Durer's The Rhinoceros Could Fetch $18,000 at Freeman's' (updated 19 February 2020). - [19] Swann Auction Galleries, New York, catalogue entry for Albrecht Durer, Rhinoceros, sale 2091, lot 18, 31 October 2006. - [20] Albrecht Durer, Netherlands travel diary, entry for 27 August 1520, on Aztec objects seen in Brussels, as transcribed in National Humanities Center primary source materials. --- Images on this record are public domain or CC0 and are hosted by us. 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