Albrecht Dürer – The Rhinoceros Mug

In May 1515, an Indian rhinoceros arrived in Lisbon as a gift from the Sultan of Gujarat to King Manuel I of Portugal — the first living rhinoceros seen in Europe since Roman times. Word of the animal spread quickly, and within months Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528) had made his famous woodcut based on a written description and a rough sketch, never having seen the animal himself. The result is one of the most celebrated images in the history of printmaking: a rhinoceros rendered with extraordinary confidence and detail, yet anatomically quite unlike an actual rhinoceros, with an extra horn at the shoulders, heavily plated skin suggesting armour, and a general impression of mechanical improbability that somehow manages to convey the genuine strangeness of the creature.

Dürer's Rhinoceros was reproduced and copied for the next two centuries and became the standard European image of the animal. It is a document not only of a remarkable animal but of the limits and possibilities of knowledge transmitted at a distance — how much information can survive the chain from observation to description to drawing to woodcut.

Fine Porcelain — 10 oz. Dishwasher and microwave safe.

Albrecht Dürer, Rhinocerus, 1515, woodcut. Public domain.

Selected by Dr. Walther Fuchs for the Tazzarte collection.