Pocket Square 'Rhino' Albrecht Dürer

Artwork: ‘Rhino’

Author: Albrecht Dürer 

This year we’re celebrating our 15th anniversary! To mark the occasion, we’ve prepared a limited series of pocket squares—bestsellers from previous years. We have printed this semi-abstract design on pure silk from the Como region of Italy. As with all our pocket squares, the edges are hand-rolled by our skilled craftswomen here in Katowice.

The ‘Rhino’ pocket square first debuted in our collection in 2019.

Created in 1515 Dürer’s woodcut shaped public perceptions of the creature for more than two centuries. It’s a  pre-eminent example of art besting reality Albrecht Dürer had a showman’s instincts for killer subject matter.  When history’s greatest print-maker decided to create an image of the  rhinoceros that had visited Lisbon in 1515, it became one of the most  influential animal pictures ever. Perhaps anticipating high demand, Dürer rendered the animal not as an engraving, but a cheaper woodcut, which meant it could be quickly and  easily reproduced.

Are those shoulders and flanks or plates of armour? Dürer had never  seen his battleship of an animal in the flesh. His woodcut is derived  from a written description and sketch by an unknown artist. It combines  his passion for science with his gift for the awesome and fantastic.

It’s a pre-eminent example of art besting reality. In Europe, Dürer’s rhino was taken to be the real deal well into the 18th century, when  actual rhinos toured the continent and dispelled the illusion. Prior to that it inspired work as diverse as illustrations in naturalist books, the Duke of Florence’s emblem, and a relief sculpture on the doors of Pisa cathedral.