#TwoForTuesday :

Helmut Middendorf (Germany, b.1953)

Today is both #WorldRhinoDay & #ElephantAppreciationDay! 🦏 🐘

Alexander Calder (USA, 1898-1976)

The #Elephant and the #Rhinoceros, 1966

lithograph on vellum, 38 x 28 cm

Today is both #ElephantAppreciationDay and #WorldRhinoDay so here is an image featuring both animals:

[Asian] Elephant and [Indian] Rhinoceros in File, cylinder seal (impression), Harappa, Indus Valley, c. 2500 BCE

With bonus crocodilians! (Gharials?)

The photo is of an enlarged impression made of the original cylinder seal from the 1930s excavations at Tell Asmar. Even though it was found in Mesopotamia, it was identified as an import from the Indus Valley. See full record here: https://archive.org/details/ancientsealsofne34marti/page/n19/mode/2up

For #SaveTheRhinoDay 🦏:

René Lalique (French, 1860-1945)

1. Rhinocéros paperweight, Model 1195, 1931 frosted glass, L 11.5 x H 8.5 cm

2. Original plaster model, 1931 H 8.3 x W 11.5 x D 2.5 cm

For #SaveTheRhinoDay 🦏:

Rhinoceros, c.1900

House of Fabergé / Peter Carl Fabergé (Russian, 1846-1920)

spotted red jasper, H 2 3/8 × W 4 5/8 × D 1 5/8 in. (6.1 × 11.8 × 4.2 cm)

Acquired by Henry Walters, 1900, by purchase [from the factory]

The Walters Art Museum 27.480

"Represented is the Indian rhinoceros, an animal found east of the Caspian Sea. Fabergé did not establish a hardstone studio until 1908, so this piece must have been produced outside the firm, perhaps in Karl Woerffel's lapidary (gem and precious stone) works in St. Petersburg or at the Haus Stern factory in Idar-Oberstein, Germany."

#BookRecommendations for #SaveTheRhinoDay 🦏:

The Rhinoceros from Dürer to Stubbs, 1515-1799 (1986)

Clara the Rhinoceros (2023)

Miss Clara and the Celebrity Beast in Art 1500–1860 (2022)

Rhino [Animals in Art] (2006)

Rhinoceros [Animal series] (2008)

For #SaveTheRhinoDay 🦏:

Andy Warhol (American, 1928-1987) Black Rhinoceros, from the Endangered Species series, 1983 Color Screenprint on Lenox Museum Board, edition of 150, 38 x 38 in (96.5 x 96.5 cm)

(Image © The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc.)

#TextileTuesday:

18th c. French bed hanging - lots of cool fantastical birds & dragons but check out the neat trio of rhino, elephant, & camel in the center! Also a bonus cameleopard (giraffe).

Unidentified French Embroiderer(s) Bed Hanging 18th century Linen ground, wool and silk embroidery threads Baltimore Museum of Art 1952.148b

On display at “Making Her Mark: A History of #WomenArtists in Europe, 1400-1800” exhibition at BMA

It’s Clara! (probably) 🦏

Jean-Baptiste Baillon, clockmaker (French, d. ca. 1770)

Attributed to Jean-Joseph de Saint-Germain,

bronze maker (French, 1719-1791)

Mantel Clock, after 1749

Virginia Museum of Fine Arts display

“This mantel clock exemplifies the exuberant Rococo style of the mid-18th century that delighted in the apparent novelty and exoticism of Asian cultures as they were perceived in the popular European imagination.

Ménagerie clocks featuring models of unfamiliar beasts from Africa and Asia became highly fashionable collectibles in the 1740s. Though the rhinoceros was known in Europe as early as the 16th century, it was not until a live Indian rhinoceros named Clara was brought to the Netherlands in 1741 that the animal became a widely recognized marvel. Clara was exhibited throughout Europe for nineteen years, delighting average citizens and courtiers alike. In 1749, she arrived in Paris, where she inspired drawings by many artists and studies by scientists. The model for this clock was likely based on one of these renderings.”

It's both #WorldRhinoDay & #ElephantAppreciationDay! 🦏 🐘

Elephant and Rhinoceros printmaker: Pieter van den Berge publisher: Jaques Le Moine de l’Espine Amsterdam, 1686-96 "Portrait au Naturel d'un Elephant et d'un Rinoceros Arrivez de puis peu des Indes Orientalles a Londres, 1686" Rijksmuseum RP-P-1906-2905

For #TilesOnTuesday + a belated #SaveTheRhinoDay:

“A two-horned African rhinoceros ‘PINOKEPOC’ on the Nilotic mosaic of the flooding of the river Nile in Egypt, from the Sanctuary of Fortuna Primigenia at Praeneste, c. 100 BCE, Palestrina Museo Archeologico.”